We had the good fortune of connecting with DEL HENDRIXSON and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi DEL, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
The summer I graduated HS in Arkansas, I found myself with never before free time I spent many hours in parks with black India ink, a pen and a blank paper from a sketch book. I never thought of myself as being creative, more than anything I was ‘curious’ about everything from psychology to fishing to just kicking back and letting my parents support me. I really didn’t have any future type plans, except I was also fascinated by persons who spoke foreign languages and had different skin color than me. I sort of saw myself as neutral in color and they seemed to have beautiful olive skin and exotic accents in their language or in English when they spoke. I guess I was bored when I would go to the park after I graduated HS in Hot Springs because my parents had decided I needed to attend a Business School, sixty miles away in Little Rock, the Capitol. There mostly all I did was party and get into innocent exploratory mischief so I have no idea why till this day they wanted to send me there. Probably just to try to get me out of the house. The furthest thing from my adventurous mind was of all things…. business.

I remember thinking to myself as I sat there in the classroom, bored to death that I knew a whole lot more than the teacher and actually I knew nothing. So after I either dropped out of that business school or graduated, I don’t remember which, I returned back home and got a job with a friend of my parents at the local newspaper. I was intrigued by all the typesetting and camera darkroom and people walking around with big leather vests on because they were actually creating type strips from molten lead. The machines and what all they produced that went into making the daily newspaper constantly amazed me. I became friends with the guys and women who worked there and when I was back in the office after running the proofs of ads all over town to advertisers the old school way, I would hang around and see what all it took to put all of it together. I fell in love with the magical process, the smell of the inks and the darkroom where films were developed beginning from the old antique looking cameras. I guess I got sucked into it all.

Well I think they taught me a little too much, because they sort of sympathized with me being under 21 and not allowed into bars or back then casinos were all over town. Illegal, but they were there sort of wink wink just enjoy the adventure and fun of gambling as a kid. So they made me a ‘innovative new’ birth certificate with all my own info but they changed my birthday just a tad, making me 21. Then I was legal ‘enough’ to do anything that had held me back. I actually told the driver’s license office there had been a mistake and I was actually 21. It was changed it right away. Better yet.

I was only 18 back then and was treated only as a proof runner they called me. On one hand I didn’t mind that either because I was out running around most of the day. But when I returned I was amazed at how what I was showing to advertisers was created from all those creative, seemingly primitive processes. There were no computers. Everything was set by an old machine that actually created bars of lead the width of the line of type needed and poured into a molten state. Those became the lines of type. The word leading now used in computers means the spacing of lead they placed in between each line of lead text. It was also created in reverse reading so when it was printed it came out legible. Those poor pre press guys had to read everything backwards in order to create it. They read it from right to left and often upside down to make sense of it to proof read before it was made into the actual printed articles and information.

I quickly realized that business school was definitely not for me. For me it seemed merely an excuse to tap into what the world could have in store for me! I loved adventure and creativity, foreign languages, accents, and who knows what else?

I convinced my best friend Woody from Little Rock who I’d met when I lived the party life up there to strike out on our own and move to Dallas with some guys we met while racing sports cars around the mountains in Hot Spring during the summer.

I think I thought adventure and discovery would be my life’s career and it very much has been!

Once we were in Dallas, Woody got me a job in the office of a Construction company he was an assistant superintendent. We were from Arkansas of all places! We didn’t know ‘Jack’ about big city life. We were real hicks at the time and wowed by everything and anything we saw but the adventure and discovery was definitely in high gear. Dallas is where we learned about life and all we could do wrong to cause our once innocent lives to merely melt away day after day.

We went from living in cushy houses with our parents feeding and taking care of us to each of our separate tiny rooms in a boarding house in deep East Dallas. It was the first place we ducked into after we got there. Bathroom down the hall and all. Meals served downstairs whenever the old lady felt up to it other than that we were on our own. Plus, we had zero money which didn’t help. Our parents didn’t help either of us with any cash to make the trip to see if they could force us to come back home. But we were determined. We sold our coats in the worst of winter. We were just so not knowing what the hell we were doing it was and is now embarrassing, but somehow we made it. Woody’s boss liked us and our innocence so he fronted us money till we got paid in two weeks or he took us out to eat and kind of took us in under his wing.

I didn’t last long in the construction office but Woody did last a few years in his role with Gus the superintendent.

Meanwhile I decided to lie my way into a print shop job at the Greyhound Bus Station. They were desperate for help and I was desperate for a job, so we gave each other a try. I failed miserably as a press operator. Paper was everywhere except in a neat box printed with what they wanted on it. Understandably, I got fired pretty soon after that.

So as time went on, I applied at another printing company for a much smaller place who was desperate for a
typographic headline setter, whatever that was. So I assured them I was the one for the job and they hired me to operate their Photo Typositor. It was a cool machine that you moved a film strip back and forth with spindles and when you were in the correct position you exposed the strip with that letter and moved on to the next. I loved the idea of that machine but since I lied to him and had never even seen one before or heard of one I asked the owner if he would give me a little ‘refresher’ on operating it. He was a nice guy who I’m sure knew I was lying but nonetheless he obliged and I never looked back. I was great at it in no amount of time! Finally, I found something I liked and could actually do to have success in the printing field.

Well as I moved around from company to company faking my way into more and more complex jobs I became really great as graphic specialist camera operator. Those original cameras back in the day had 29 steps setup before the actual exposure button could be pushed. They were some twenty feet long out into the light side of the process where all the sizing and loading of the original document took place, to the darkroom side of the camera where the manual focusing took place. Those were the good ole days. So fascinating and involved where now computers eliminate all those skilled steps. Since I was always good in English and grammar in school I became a natural typesetter, printing press plate maker, proofreader, copy editing, proofing, and even a copy writer. Soon I was excellent at everything ‘this side’ of the actual printing press referred to as pre-press.

However, I never forgot that handy little special craft I learned at the newspaper back in my hometown. Birth Certificates.

After living in Dallas many years, I got to know more and more people that plainly needed a ‘fresh start with a new birthplace’ of USA not Mexico. So the sadder the stories got, the more birth certificates I made for illegals. I also did a few for persons needing to clean up their credit faster than with some agency, and now and then someone who just needed to be re-born again with another age, or history to get off to another clean start. What I did then – would never pass now since now involved holograms, bar codes, water marks in the paper and other sophisticated means of prevention of counterfeiting. 

But back then, I was actually approached by the Dallas Police Department about needing a few birth certificates, and I thought ‘oh hell’ now what. Two detectives came into my living room, asked if they could sit down and said, they’d heard of my special talent through the grapevine.

Then, they asked me if I could actually create a few birth certificates for them, for the Dallas Police Department, for their ‘Witness Protection Plan’ to hide people they were working with. Needless to say, I was very impressed I had gotten so good and they were equally impressed that I agreed to help them of course I’m sure it kept me off the radar as well.

On one of my birthdays in Dallas someone gave me a 35mm camera which I’d never even held or thought of before. But I became a magnet to all things creative and fell in love with photography as well and soon went to work for professional photo labs as print maker and darkroom specialist, restorations and other related fields.

Since I had become so multi-talented, the detectives also had a special other favor which I reluctantly agreed to in order to keep me on their side not in handcuffs. They asked me to sort of blend into circles and hang out with known wanted persons and take photos as one of their group close up ‘even some of them posed directly for my camera’ images for their investigations. When I came back with my photos the cops couldn’t believe they were right in front of the person, and not grainy long shots from a van several blocks away as they were used to.

I took a road trip to San Miguel de Allende Mexico, a golden little village frozen in time with cobblestone winding streets, antiquated center plaza and little houses of big rocks. As I wandered the streets after smoking a really strong mind ‘enhancer’ I came upon and photographed an old beggar man playing a guitar under a rock overpass. I’ll never forget, he had an empty jalapeno can in front of him for alms that I had was compelled to drop some coins into. He never looked up. His face was hidden by his big old hat and his voice was terrible and raspy. It was such an incredible sight I can remember it today as I had developed the eye of ‘framing pictures by just glancing at different scenarios’. I took lots of 35mm pictures when I was down there but didn’t know if they would come out or not due to my enhanced elevated frame of mind.

When I returned to my job job at the photo lab, I realized I was also becoming quite the photo journalist. I had all my rolls of film developed and most of them were so beautiful of the sights and people there. However, amazingly that one picture of the Old Man which I called it was right there and it just jumped out at me! Everything about it was so artistic I was in disbelief! I knew I had to print it and enter it in the upcoming highly promoted Dallas Market Hall Photography Contest they hyped it as over 3,000 entries from all over. Since I was working in a photo lab I had access to print that one 16×20 and on mounted canvas as an employee perk. I decided to add another couple of prints just to give myself a bit more of a chance of winning in one of the many categories. It was my first and only photo exhibition I’ve ever entered.

I started using photography to earn some extra cash and faked being a professional even though I probably was far from it. However, I managed to capture the ever famous motorcycle jump of stuntman Evel Knievel over the 16 Mac Trucks in Dallas. I created a VIP PRESS badge for myself that allowed me inside with all the celebrities and top dogs of Mac Truck. They had hired a supposedly ‘real’ professional photographer which later turned out to be my enemy to get the jump on before he could even present them with a picture of the jump when it happened. So when EK was thirty feet in mid-air center of the two spreads of massive trucks, I ‘snapped!’ And as I was learning I also seemed to have a perfect timing calculation for when to ‘snap my best shot’. That picture once again also was spectacular. This time I had a feeling I was going to be right on because I thought I had precisely timed it. But I only had one chance and that was it. There was no re-do and it was never ever possible to be repeated.

I also took many shots standing right next to Evel Knievel, his fingers covered with huge flashy diamond rings as he was signing autographs for what seemed like miles of fans and dignitaries, even the mainstream media, with him and his famous gaudy white Elvis type jumpsuit. It soon became common knowledge that I was the lead event photographer because I was everywhere anything was going on and on top of it. Mac truck officials were even winking at me as if to say ‘great shot’after other great shots. The other photographer they officially hired stood in the background just snapping at the back of heads here and there and taking no interest to pose anyone or be in a ‘right place at a right time’.

Soon as the event closed down I rushed my films to a quick ‘overnight photo lab’ used mainly by police and press. Early next morning I was at the lab to see how I had done. And there it was…. sure enough PERFECTION! My timing had been immaculate! I had caught his jump right in the precise center of the highest point of the two spreads of 8 trucks each! I decided to definitely enter that one along with the ‘Old Man’.

On another trip down to Galveston and my first discovery of the beach in Texas I had snapped a few images of seagulls flying around over the sand and water. I only snapped a few but one of them seemed like it might have what it took to be considered ‘magic’.  It was a lone seagull in the shot and its wings were extended outward and he was floating against the clear sky. I loved that one as well. So I entered it.

By now I was really into photography but also had hundreds of hours experience in graphics, darkroom, and art prints.

I entered the three prints and after the ‘installation time allotted’ I wasn’t really familiar with the whole process which was supposed to be judged over the weekend and results to be announced during the event. I decided to just enter my prints and go off and enjoy my weekend and see how I did after the judging. I figured, you enter, you do something else, you wait, you find out and take your prints and go home.

Seems I was really wrong when an oil painter artist friend who had gone there to see all the entries as well as mine called me and said. “Where are you? What are you doing? Why are you not here at the exhibit?” I was like “Why? What’s wrong?” and he said, “Nothing’s wrong, but you won all three top places!! First, Second and Third Place!” I couldn’t believe it so I raced down there and everyone had been waiting for me to congratulate me and present me with the three top place ribbons!

I never entered another photo contest after that one. But I cherished that exhibit and it definitely made a difference in my photo journalism career over the years.

Working in the creative fields gave me great experience, but didn’t really pay me what I thought my worth was becoming. I started a business here and there, first one was new apartment cleaning, with a crew to do the work. It paid very well into the thousands of dollars a week but soon my crew got wise and went direct and cut me out.

Then a good but very wealthy friend wanted me to go in with him in a paint and body shop so he could have all his girlfriend’s cars fixed for ‘personal’ favors.

That deal sounded ‘kinda good’ lol, but something was off with it due to him only wanting to be paid in ‘favors’. But I did like the idea of another business I would have to dig in and learn about from the bottom up.

It was then I realized I was an ‘entrepreneur’ a sort of maverick wheeler dealer. It was another field, I knew nothing about but I was a ‘challenging business puzzle’ I realized I had to hire people to do the work, figure out how to market, drive business to the business, close the deals, sell the services, work with insurance companies, clients, estimators, auto specialists and matching up parts ordered to particular model, make and year of vehicle, and juggle all of those headaches….and make a profit! Since my rich investor partner only wanted the body shop to play with I decided I wanted to keep it for the big income potential and therefore I offered to buy him out from the profits I was soon bringing in.

That was a tough one to figure out due to all the every changing and challenging variables. But after running through a few workers and finding just the right crew that put out fast, great, and insurance approved repairs I went after more and more contract work with large delivery companies and such. I had gotten up to around $350,000 a year over a few years and the business was thriving. My shop had become the top rental car referrer in all of Dallas county. I figured out if a person had an accident that wasn’t their fault, most likely they were provided a rental by the at fault party. I was awarded a plaque for having referred over 25% of the cars of one major company in a month. I learned how to take the payment for the repairs, pay the body and paint men working in my shop the allotted fee and then submit a ‘supplement’ for additional repairs needed that were unable to be seen by the estimators due to the damage to the vehicle, yet they were repaired and the shop was awarded the supplement without paying additional to the paint and body crew. Everyone got paid and then there was a supplement. That seemed brilliant as it was pointed out to me by the insurance company themselves.

However, just when everything was going so great in the body shop business…. I got a very bad knock on the door of my shop. Seems the birth certificate days had come back to haunt me.

After all that talent and all those accolades and accomplishments I was arrested for counterfeiting birth certificates and sentenced to Federal Prison for 5 years for making a few too many, which even the Feds agreed they were better than any they had ever seen before. Embossed seal, reduced in size, reversed in color and so on. They told me ‘we would much rather hire you than arrest you, but we have no choice.’

I quickly lost my very booming body shop and exchanged it for a stint in the prison life. I was very sad to say I had landed in there and lost all I had accomplished out here.

My time spent in prison is another total adventure most people avoid, but some don’t. So I won’t go into it here. Luckily, I was paroled out in less than a year for good behavior.

However, after I was released I could get no one to hire me as an ex-offender, ex-convict, ex-prisoner, none of the above. My talents and expertise fell flat. They had gotten me put in prison and I almost hated them. But after a while I managed to get hired by some dead end little dinky print shop as their camera person. It wasn’t long before I saw how the owner was treating all his employees like dogs with no respect at all. Not for them, not for their family sitting out on the curb homeless, and so on. One day, after I had been burning through the work in the darkroom for him, he turned and looked at me with that special ‘you are next to get it look’. I thought, ‘oh hell no’ don’t even start in on me! I had been through hell on earth and tho I didn’t tell him I had been in prison. Prison taught me many hard lessons and one was never accept disrespect for any reason. Just draw the line and walk away, don’t cross it.

Now mind you, when I was arrested I was owner of a very successful paint and body shop making a fat bankroll back in those days.

This print shop owner was paying me a measly $6.50 an hour, but it was a beginning to try to get my head straight and keep the parole office thinking I was doing good….. and I actually ‘was really doing good’. So I didn’t need this jerk to ruin my day or my freedom so I told him to ‘step into the darkroom so I could have a word with him’. As he followed me into the tiny space with camera filling up most of the little room, work neatly completed by me and ready for his press, I turned to him and I told him, ‘Listen, if you think you are going to talk to me the way you are talking to the others, I’m going to politely put you in the hospital’. His eyes really widened and I think he realized I was not going to tolerate any of his demeaning bullshit.

So as he tells me, ‘Get out, You’re Fired’. I turned back around and I saw the others he had been mistreating look at me to see what I was going to do, and I said, ‘Much healthier for both of us.’

That was the day I realized I cannot work for anyone ever again, no matter how difficult it was. Life after prison was not what I or anyone expected, all the twists and turns and threats of going back just wasn’t fair.

I had returned from prison with $7 check from the government for a month’s work unloading trailer trucks at .16 cents an hour. I swore that day that I would never be broke again no matter what sacrifice it took.

So it’s definitely been a struggle from day one, but over the years I’ve created a charity called Bajito Onda Foundation, and funded it by teaching others the art of printing and creative thinking outside the box that is known for restricting free thought, imagination, dreaming of success and especially achieving respected success!

So for me to be able to travel the world, enjoy exotic experiences with new faces of all races, it took lots of money not day dreaming and spending hours on end with friends in non-productive settings. As they say, “Its Lonely At The Top”.

I’ve travelled to Senegal West Africa, London, Germany, and actually lived in Sao Paulo Brazil for a year, and another year in the Brazil Rainforest, Amazon Jungle Manaus. I now speak excellent Portuguese, as well as excellent Spanish, having lived a year also in Monterrey Mexico where I presented 4 times to the United Nations my programs to train others to become independent entrepreneurs free to do as they wish when they want.

But the challenges as well as the rewards are limitless! Challenges are opportunities to achieve a higher level of success on a lonely but rewarding road others will most likely never imagine, let alone travel.

Enjoy!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

To me business is art and art is business or since we are a charity 501c3 Federal Status, it is our funding. – and both are ways to ‘give back’, mentor and build futures for others while learning to earn for ourselves. I realized a long time ago that about 1% of us are the creators and developers of things for others to enjoy and or benefit from. Actually we are masochists that never sleep and never stop dream-veloping new things, new ways and we also enjoy the impossible struggle it takes to do so. However, we also have passports and we also have no fear to travel to new lands of knowledge others don’t.

I’m more of a socio-technical developer. I’m not very much of an artist, but I love art and I say I don’t collect art… I collect artists. With each artist comes a whole new pattern of thinking and creativity and the results are so different I find it incredible.

When I see an original art, I see products that can be created from each piece. I see people wearing the garments, or hanging the art prints on their walls for years of enjoyment. I also see the money created from the sale of these multiples of the original arts continuing to duplicate and multiply thus bringing in more and more independence for the artist, even if that artist is locked away for life in a prison cell unseen by society.

That is the uniqueness in my Prison Art Collection. First all of the artists are mostly Chicano and Native ethnic artists with rich cultures who bring a weave of all things ‘unique to them’ from their minds, through their fingers and onto the paper, which then they have sent out of prison to me since 1996. My first piece of Prison art was sent to me by a prisoner who was serving 99 years. He sent it to me because he heard I had started a Prison Art Gallery in Old East Dallas. I also incorporated a tattoo studio with the art hanging around the walls. My dream was to have a finger in every creative pie I could. You may ask if the prisoners earn money from sending their art to my foundation. No they don’t. they contributed the art in exchange for all I have done for prisoners after my own release and also for the thousands of families of prisoners, children of prisoners, moms, wives, parents, on and on. Also one terrible part of it is when I used to make sure to send the prisoners money even on their books for their art, the prison system would cut them off from sending out any more art and their art would die behind the walls. When we realized that was what was happening, in order for them to get their art out to me to cherish and have others view and share outside the walls. I have since honored their requests to take the art as a donation from them, to the charity I founded which we all benefit from in one way or another, and we are able to share with the world. Since they are not ‘selling their art’ for public viewing, they are then free to continue to send to their families and friends for those to put money on their books and of course that allows for a means for contributions from the foundation to help them as well with materials they need instead of direct payment. 

I’ve also launched a music and video recording studio so people could tell their stories and show others what they have accomplished. Literally anything creative that shined a light into their darkness and led them away from at risk lifestyles and restored dreams and hope in their lives. 

My prison art exhibit had grown to over a hundred contributions when I just had to ‘put a hold on receiving more’. It broke my heart because I love the art and I love empowering others and giving them a voice and a presence even if they are locked from behind prison walls. It came time I had to make a choice to focus on my own future in order to stabilize the foundation and prepare to one day develop all those arts into the only Spanish name cultural urban street wear featuring prison art fashion collection. 

Soon word of Bajito Onda Ultra Urban Prison Art fashions reached the media, newspapers, television, both Spanish and English. I was asked to do interviews and to explain how it began and formed and grew so powerful worldwide with so many voices authentically represented. Bajito Onda gave the urban audience hope, culture, and the proof that a dream can become real when enough lives share the power to embrace it.

BajitoOnda.com was born, with the contract from the licensing company in New York called Changes of NY. They produce the massively popular urban collection of Biggie, Tupac, Scarface, Al Capone, and so many others. They wanted to produce Bajito Onda Urban Legend Collection. They offered a very big up front of royalties for the rights to produce it in the tens of thousands of dollars. That had been searching forever for a brand that would ‘communicate with Spanish speakers of any of the dozens of countries whose first language isn’t English.’

I had already been collecting prison art since the 90’s so I asked one of my homeboys, a Native American Tattoo Artist from East Dallas, ‘Boog’ if he would throw down a special creation especially for the New York Changes licensed Collection.  I had mentored Boog since he was 17 years old. He told me to give him a ride home and to wait in the car for him to do it. The homie designed and drew it to perfection in only two hours what is now known as The Crying Gangsta Charra. That single Bajito Onda Collection design is now tattooed on persons all over the world. Boog sadly passed away December 2022 but the many pieces of his contribution for the collection he donated to Bajito Onda will live on through the efforts of the Charity to mentor others and lift them up. The Crying Gangsta Charra is now known as the Queen of the BO Underground Fashions and her value is in the tens of thousands of dollars since she has been licensed on many items such as apparel, temporary tattoos, stickers, headwear, etc.

I knew nothing about the ‘business of licensing’ and how it related to art, but I was not going to turn it down. Come to find out I gave them far too much since I authorized them to use 6 pieces of art, and they received ‘Exclusive Worldwide Rights” for three years. But it showed me how much a brand can rise when dedication and perseverance is a key factor.

Since my brand and my charity is named Bajito Onda (the Underground Scene in Spanish) somehow the licensee had a hard time trying to fit us into an already existing audience. They wanted to know if we were like Affliction, Ed Hardy, Baby Phat, and others. I told them ‘no’. We are our own audience base of Latin Underground culture and those who love the style.

They could not wrap their head around where this audience was? Yet it is all around us. Mixed languages blended cultures, not colors.

Bajito Onda travelled to Europe and was presented on the world stage in London International Licensing Expo in 2013. It really caught on in Europe after that. Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, UK, Poland, Serbia, Norway, Russia, Japan and many other countries rocked the brand, until came the time to license EMP Rock N Roll Licensing Distribution who represents Beatles, Rolling Stones, Korn, Pantera, Motorhead, Metallica, and a ton of other top brands of mainly bands, wanted to represent Bajito Onda in Europe. However, at the time it was not possible to produce it in the USA and export it to Europe because the import duties were exorbitant and the tracking of the sales in so many different monetary systems was way over my and our attorney’s heads. But the brand caught on in Europe and instead of selling to the ones wanting to represent, I gave them permission to print their own copies in Europe and represent away! Rap songs flourished about the brand that was a real underground brand. Videos surfaced with members around the world wearing it and representing Bajito Onda. 

Since all the licenses are back home where they began, with the collection. We are now proudly producing the garments here in Tucson Arizona of all places.

In July 2022 we purchased our own ‘print on demand’ equipment, the Brother GTX – DTG or direct to garment. The quality is amazing at 1200 dpi and any design can be effortlessly printed at the push of a button in a matter of seconds. There is no set up and no clean up as in screen printing. Also the inks are totally eco solvent, not able to feel them due to the fact they are actually more like dyes into the cotton, and they actually penetrate the fabric, unlike screen printing that is very heavy plastic feel, not breathable at all. This process takes only a .PNG file.

In July we also were awarded a magnificent stat of the art equipment with a 30″ printable material capability. Now we are able to make stickers, signage, art prints, posters, canvas prints, and other flat prints that follows with a blade to cut around the digitized area or outline of the image printed – that is called a trim cut. Then it also has the ability to perforate cut around the entire sticker in the form of a square or other shape to allow them to be just popped out after perf cutting.
Same as the Brother, the printing is highest quality 1200 dpi. 

The other equipment that is really specialized is screen printing of water slide decal sheets that slide off onto glass pieces and allows for fusing permanently into the glass because the inks are made of a finest powder glass frit blended with a clear medium in order to allow the mixture to print through a screen with a fineness up to 350 mesh, or 350 tiny openings per square inch. This shop has become the go to for the top scientific glass as well as artistic or pipe makers in the entire glass industry. Borosilicate glass or Pyrex is the only glass that is totally customizable as well as brandable. I knew nothing regarding glass branding until I moved to Tucson. I was asked if I could create logos for pipe makers that did not rub off or self-destruct when cleaning chemicals were used on them. After two years of trial and more trial and giving up a hundred times, one logo finally fused permanently into the glass and could not be scratched off or affected even by acetone or other harsh chemicals. Now this work performed right here in Tucson is now the finest worldwide in the glass industry. Clients now include Proctor & Gamble, Bob Snodgrass, Mickelsen, Jennifer Caldwell, Sagan, and many hundreds of others.

All three process are highly profitable, customizable, and fast fast fast.

So just remember, one smart designer operator and one state of the art duplicating machine equals 5 persons or else on the other hand when there are 5 actual persons involved there are more chances to screw things up and lose money for the owner operator. But when the owner eliminates obstacles, he captures a bigger prize!!

Just remember to love what you do and do what you love and focus only on those things, and your life will be so productive one day you will have everything you need and a lot of the things you want!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

Oh man, there are so many things to do out here in the beautiful exotic high desert. All my life I wanted to just see a lifelike Sahauro Cactus. Tucson is the official Sahauro National Forest. There are more here than anywhere else on earth. The totally surrounding majestic mountain ranges on all sides are magic in themselves. There is a protection here that I’ve never felt anywhere else. So I would definitely take them to GRANTS PASS out towards the Old Movie Studios. –
Another place is of course San Xavier Catholic Mission and Tohono O’odhom Reservation. If they are cooking their native fry bread red chili tacos you absolutely have to have one. They are huge and so amazingly delicious.

Of course 4th Ave downtown is a great stroll and lunch or breakfast at incredible Hotel Congress patio or inside the Cup Cafe. Rich with John Dillinger history, bank robberies and you can even stay at quaint Hotel Congress and enjoy the music and people watching.

Other restaurants that are very good are Guadalajara Grill on Prince where a lady makes delicious hot sauce at the table, Margaritas are wonderful no matter the size.

Then for breakfast on Grant is SNOOZE – very delicious everything, Great service and drinks as well.

For an authentic roadside Mexican eat under a patio beside the window is MAICOS on 22nd Street at Park Ave beside the 7-11.

Tucson is the only place you can be on top of a big scenic beautiful mountain in five minutes, close to downtown is ‘A’ MOUNTAIN – very scenic, very high and lots of viewpoints of all views of the city.

An amazing – restaurant for the taste buds is on Oracle called TEASPOON – open only for breakfast and brunch. Try the Dutch Baby Savory – incredible.

Mr An’s, Teppan Steak & Seafood for table cooking chefs that are entertaining as well as such great dining and fun. Sushi also and Mr An is such an awesome guy.

Sushi Garden has the best and freshest in the Downtown area.

If you want a great massage go to Park Place Mall on Broadway and relax with an incredible massage at Oriental Chi Massage. All I can say is wow! You deserve to relax!

Catfish and shrimp – Crispy Fish on Ft Lowell and 1st Ave. Best catfish I’ve had outside of Dallas since I’ve been out here twelve years.

Biosphere 2 out of town a little is another full day scientific adventure.

Mt. Lemmon is a great drive up to the top and lots to do once up there – it’s about 10,000 feet high and has real trees, ski lift, real snow on many occasions and great views from all angles.

The sunsets in Tucson, the clear skies and starry nights are breathtaking especially from out in Gates Pass.

You may notice the street lights here are very dark, it’s called a dark city so the sky can be the focus.

Telescopes abound and there are something like 26 major huge telescopes all around the area especially on the mountain tops.

Bisbee and Tombstone are two must experiences when in the area.

Zoo. lol – I’m not much into zoos anywhere but there is a really nice one here on Broadway.

Hiking is everywhere but make sure you watch for rattlesnakes (big ones), mountain lions, coyotes, foxes, sometimes a bear and often Gila monsters. It’s definitely a wild life city in more ways than one.

The music scene here is always live and funky. Its small enough to be big and big enough to be hometown friendly small.

Enjoy Tucson!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

I had a wonderful mentor who is now passed on, Don Hazard, I call him then and now ‘My Special Angel’, because he mentored me and because of him, I have the skills and expertise I now share with others in developing and marketing their own ideas and enjoying their own financial freedom, trials and challenges.

One day I went to the screen printing supply company he was the manager of.  I let him know I had been in prison and I didn’t have a penny to my name. But I had the desire to do whatever it took to learn to print and be self-sufficient since no one else would hire me that I thought was respectful and with dignity for those who had made mistakes.

Don told me that if I would sell a job to a client, and create the logo they wanted that he would teach me how to print it, no matter what it was. He also told me that he would bring over the equipment I needed to do the jobs he would teach me to produce. That following Saturday sure enough he and a couple other guys showed up and personally brought in a four color shirt revolving manual screen printer, a small apparel belt dryer, and another machine for printing decals or flat pieces of papers, posters, etc. He also brought a ton of ink and squeegees which I would soon be learning on. I remember him winking at me and saying, ‘there’s more where this came from, but you have to go and get it’ He laughed!

I was in shock but so happy! He also mentored me for over ten years, day or night, when I called in a pinch he came straight over. He told me ‘There but for the Grace of God Go I’ because he almost landed in prison and he realized what I had gone through and he said I deserved a chance at financial independence by hard work, and keeping my mind and creative energies busy.

I printed the first ever Whole Foods T-shirts. And I did them fast. They were in shock because nobody had ever done anything like that complicated of a project in only two days. They paid me my $1800 and I began my love for printing.

He also taught me how to print with only two hinges and a cheap flat table, by hand. I printed with the help of another little guy who had just been released from prison 400 decals for a large construction company’s trucks, equipment and so forth. I charged the client $7 each for 400 decals and it came to $2800 and cost of materials in the vinyl decal sheets which we cut into 4 was only around $300. So it took us four hours to print 400 decals for his trucks and they air dried in only a few minutes. Profit was $2500. That was all it took for me to say, I’m in this for good! I had been used to making pennies on these dollars so I vowed to my mentor, “Because you taught me…. I’ll teach others.”

Over the years I’d say I’ve mentored around ten thousand persons on probation doing court ordered community service and instead of disciplining them, I taught them or let them help us print shirts, signs, decals, etc.  When someone even had the desire to want the gift I was given, I’ve shared the gift with them. Hard work, free thinking, discipline, and open minds have made a lot of my own mentored lives continue their dreams and realize them.

Paralyzed persons injured by violence or accidents, blind or sight impaired persons, also have participated in the programs, they were among the challenged but, many others came as they came and since we also were fluent in Spanish so that offered our programs to another entire audience of Spanish speakers who I had helped in the beginning is why I went to prison. Since living in Brazil I also speak the fun language of Portuguese and teach it as far as it can go while learning to create and produce projects.

I must say the United Nations 4 conferences I spoke at were a huge motivation that I was on the right path doing something good and receiving good as a full circle payback.

The first award presented to me for my work was the JCPenny Golden Rule Award. Along with $1000 donation.

Since then there have been numerous awards, speaking to Universities, Juveniles, Schools and even many Prisons to motivate others to learn to earn and put their emotions into this form of creative therapy and empowerment.

Website: www.BAJITOONDA.com

Instagram: @HendrixsonGlassDecals

Other: TikTok – bajitoondausa www.hendrixsonglassdecals.com www.BajitoOnda2ndChance.com BLOG: HENDRIXSON SOLUTIONS https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/1434286114090327933 BLOG: RETAIL CRIME PREVENTION https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/7338749096732290795 BLOG: PRISON FOR BEGINNERS: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/956286861289923327

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