Frederick reminds 'Peruvian redneck' of homeland

Luis Perry has traveled both his native Peru and the U.S., first making bracelets, then working as a laborer, a pipefitter and now a painter. Landing on a farm in Frederick County was like returning to his roots.

Perry calls himself a "Peruvian redneck," because his grandfather, who was Irish, had red hair and a red face, and often a red neck, Perry said.

Now 50, he moved to the United States when he was 25.

He lived in Chicago but didn't like the cold weather. He got stuck in Silver Spring on a bad deal. "I was supposed to go with a friend to Miami. He lied to me."

Silver Spring is where Perry met his wife, another Peruvian. A year ago they broke up and Perry came to Frederick on the advice of a friend.

His two children love the farm on Elmer Derr Road where he rents a room, he said. They help him feed the goats and rabbits.

The farm reminds Perry of Peru. The owner is an excellent cook like his father and grandfather, he said.

"My grandfather opened a bakery in the mountains," Perry said, in the town of Huancayo.

His father opened a seafood restaurant in another small Peruvian town where Perry grew up.

It was a beautiful town, but his youth had some rough edges, Perry said.

His parents divorced when he was 9. His father remarried a year later.

"That was a shock for me," Perry said. "My father told me, 'You can call her mother.' It wasn't so simple. It took a long time to digest."

Academics were not easy either, he said. A head injury when he was a young left him with impaired memory.

"I had a hard time memorizing things, and I had headaches."

He dropped out of high school when he was 16 and struck out on his own.

He met a "hippie Americano" in Lima who taught him how to make bracelets. He then became a laborer at an oil refinery on the Pacific Coast outside Talara.

"I helped put the pipes together with a wrench," he said.

He did that for four years then moved to a position on an oil platform about three hours offshore.

He was amazed by the aquatic life.

"You see a thousand dolphins jumping on the water," he said. "It is a dream."

Copyright 2009 The Frederick News-Post. All rights reserved.