Roots

I came to this world screaming!  On one sunny Sunday in July, I announced to the world that I was here.  Mother breast-fed me to calm me down and I was at peace with the world.   When I started to recognize people, there was (grandma) Lola Sianang who, I imagined, would have been excited to get a glimpse of me, her first apo (grandchild) and tried to see resemblances to my Lolo Macario who was not around anymore at the time.  My father, too, had tried to see any resemblances to him and his side of the family.

Naturally, I did the same when I first got a glimpse of my first apo.  Oh, he had a strong resemblance to my daughter.

Some years later I learned that I only had one living grandparent and that was my Lola Sianang, my maternal grandmother.  My Lolo Macario, who was an active guerilla during World War II, died of his wounds in January, 1945, during a skirmish with Japanese troops.  He was hurriedly buried under darkness that no one remembered where the gravesite was up to this day.

My paternal grandparents died when my father was in his teens, both succumbing to sickness that we could only guess what.  Based on my fathers description of the symptoms leading to my Lolo Intong's death, he could have died of pneumonia.  My father recalled that he came home one day not feeling well, sat on a tomba-tomba (rocking) chair to rest, and never did get up.  My grandmother Lola Clara died a few years later of unknown causes.  Both died while in their forties.

A Family To Raise

My first post was a baby picture of me from December, 1955.  What followed after that was six more children: two boys and four girls.  Back in the days, that was considered to be a medium-sized family.  It was more common in those days of families with twelve or more children.

How would parents in those days raise those many children?  The parents worked hard.  My father was no different.  On the home front, he raised chickens (and roosters for cockfights), doves, and pigs.  He did various jobs - a policeman, a town councilman, a textile factory security, and a municipal secretary.  He went to Vietnam to work as a power technician in a US Air Force Base at Than Son Nhut.  When he came back, hard-earned money was used to buy a lease on a farm.  He became a farmer and was successful at that.  To this day, we still own the lease to that farm.  He put up a small sari-sari store, bought a jeep with a trailer for rent, a farm tiller for rent, and a tricycle for hire.

He had a strong passion for spearfishing.  With a homemade spear gun and a waterproof flashlight, he, along with friends, would go at night in nearby Manila Bay and hunt fish.  We usually have a feast of seafood (of crabs, lobsters, variety of rock fishes) after a night of good fishing and the rest of the catch would be given or sold to relatives and neighbors.  He thought me how to spearfish when I was old enough and went with him on those warm nights of spearfishing trips.

Where Does Someone Who Wants To Tell A Story Start

I've pondered and pondered at where I should start.  The title says 'Thoughts, Memories Experiences,...'  Hmmm!  This shouldn't be too hard.  Alas!  I think it'd be good to start from the beginning.  Way back to the year when I first got a glimpse of light.  Back when I wish there were digital cameras and HD videos.  That would have been nice.  Oh well, let's just settle for a BW picture of me and my parents just after I was baptized.











And that was me at 5 months old in December, 1955 - a big, heavy, chubby, oh well, let's spill it out, fat baby that I was sometimes likened to a 'Buddha' - in figure and shape, not in reverence.