Retired man handcrafts toys of wood

Young kids trapped on the rough side of life - the abused, the neglected, the poor - will get something magical on Christmas morning from Ovie Ortiz. Call them gifts of understanding.

Shaped by the hands of a man who has known want and need and poverty, the gifts from Ortiz come in various shapes and sizes of warm wood. They might be trick banks that explode when a coin hits a mousetrap inside. They could be World War I biplanes with a flying ace in the cockpit and a free-spinning propeller. They might be ducks that quack when you pull them along the floor with a string. Or they might be bears, cows, jeeps or bouquets of tulips.

All the toys are crafted in a makeshift shop in the garage of Ortiz's home near Palmer Park. He molds them from castoff wood and carefully coats them with colorful, water-based paint. Twice a year - in July and just before Christmas - he delivers the toys to groups that help poor, abused or homeless children.

He reckons that since his retirement in 1995, he has donated 1,200 of his handcrafted toys to such groups as Court Appointed Special Advocates, the Salvation Army and Hunt Elementary School. But he's not quite sure because he always carries a few in the cab of his truck to give to kids he sees on the street who look like they need a little joy in their lives.

The 70-year-old retiree is quiet and self-effacing, not given to explaining his motivation or casting himself as one of Santa's helpers. He says he just likes kids and enjoys seeing their faces when they get one of his toys.

He still gets a kick out of the reaction of one neighborhood kid:

"He was one of these streetwise kids, and I asked him if he wanted a plane for his room," Ortiz said. "He looked at it and said, 'Cool, man, I owe you one.' I loved that - I owe you one."

Ortiz may be loathe to analyze why he spends hours and hours each year in his shop - his wife, Rosemarie, calls herself a "garage widow" - but a piece of heartbreaking artwork hanging in the garage may hint at his bond with kids.

Mounted in a frame is a weathered canvas strap, four inches wide, with hooks on both ends. Underneath the strap are two tufts of field cotton, parts of the stem still attached. Between the strap and the cotton are the chilling words that greeted Jews as they were marched into the Dachau concentration camp: "Arbeit Macht Frei" - Work Brings Freedom.

The strap is the same one Ortiz used to tug 40-pound bags of cotton around Texas fields from the age of 5 until he was 15. His family - his parents, brother and two sisters - were migrant workers who moved from cotton field to potato field, from Texas to Oklahoma, living in old barns and barracks.

"It wasn't anything," Ortiz said quietly when asked about his childhood.

When Ortiz was 15, his father found a job in Austin, Texas. On his first day in school, Ortiz was placed in third grade, which he figures put him ahead of most of those he knew.

"In those days in Texas, there were always three schools - one for the blacks, one for the browns and one for the whites. Very few of us in the brown schools even made it to third grade."

A series of tests revealed the young man had a quick mind, and he eventually was moved up to ninth grade. Ortiz never looked back. He was not going into the cotton fields again.

"I told my dad, 'Hey, this is not for me.' He couldn't understand."

After getting his high school diploma - the first in his family to do so - Ortiz joined the Army in the 1950s. Stationed in Germany, he often had to transport U.S. soldiers to a stockade set up in the former Dachau prison camp.

He remembers the mocking greeting that hung over the camp and years later used it in the artwork he plans to give to his brother, who continued to work in the fields for much of his life.

"We were like the concentration camp people," he said. "We were working - working but getting nowhere."

While in the military, Ortiz began taking college courses. It took him 10 years, but he earned a bachelor's degree. He doesn't think his father understood this second high-water mark in his life either.

"If you set a goal, come hell or high water you have to meet it," he said. "You don't want to go back to the cotton fields."

When Ortiz retired from the Army in 1974, after attaining the rank of master sergeant, he turned to a career that always fascinated him: education. For the next 20 years, he taught in District 11 schools, 17 of them as the graphic arts instructor at Coronado High School. He loved every minute of it.

"You're shaping, or at least touching, kids' lives," he said. "And that's really nice."

Ortiz is reluctant to make too much of his toy-making. He didn't call the newspaper. He has never asked for money, even for the supplies and tools he needs. He said it just keeps him busy and out of trouble.

But the former migrant worker remembers being so poor he had to make his own toys.

He knows what it's like to be cold and hungry, an outsider. And maybe those memories somehow are transmitted into the wood he shapes late into the night, wood that soon will be grasped by small hands.