People lined up their fold-out camping chairs and took turns watching, cheering, jeering and playing the game. Spanish, Mexican, French, American, Black, and American Indian travelers along El Camino Real de los Tejas created a mix of traditions, laws, and cultures that is reflected in the people, landscapes, place names, languages, music, and arts of Texas and Louisiana today. An older man offered his friends water bottles and danced to Norteno music blaring from speakers. The handball courts had a family feel on a recent Tuesday afternoon during the holidays. So, it’s become the hottest place for the sport in the city. opened in 1978 and is the only park in Orange with handball courts. Hundreds of people come here on the weekend.” “I’ve come here almost every day for 25 years,” Gallardo said from the sidelines of a game at El Camino Real Park in Orange. Gallardo said that he and many of his friends are laborers, and the sport is a fun way to de-stress and stay in shape for work. But when he gets on the court, he’s fast and coordinated and quickly racks up points against those he’s playing. He doesn’t dress in active wear and isn’t of a particularly athletic build – he is in jeans and a T-shirt that’s seen better days. If you watch Gallardo, 55, you can see why friends gave him that name. He earned the title playing handball – not the version played by elementary school kids, but the competitive sport played with a ball less than an inch in diameter and in a court with three 20-foot tall walls. On the court, Jose Gallardo’s nickname is “The Samurai.”
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