I wish I could go back to those summers in Marinduque, the ancestral province of the Sevillas and the Sottos, and that wonderland of my childhood.
Marinduque is a small, heart-shaped island off the southern coast of Manila.
Back then, there were still flights on Philippine Airlines (turbo-prop pa nga, and they still served cheese pimiento sandwiches with sickeningly sweet orange juice - probably julep or sunny orange) to the Island. Approaching for the landing, the plane would make a graceful turn and you'd get to see the short airstrip where, more often than not, there would be a stray goat ambling along then - ratatat! - well, there'd be kalderata galore for the airport security that night.
Taxiing into the front of the arrival area of the Gen. Arthur Sevilla Airport (named after one of my Lolos), in Barangay Masiga, we would usually see my beloved Lola Grata Sotto Sevilla, a classy and grand old Senora despite her short and stout frame, waving to us (in true Ms. Universe fashion) as we disembarked the plane and hopped-skipped-and-jumped down the rickety stairs. Besides Lola, we'd usually also see Maya (our childhood playmate) and either Aling Thelma (Maya's mother and long-time aide of Lola) or Mang Tomo (Maya's father, right-hand man of Lola and general all-around custodian of the ancestral home).
Quickly getting our baggage from the manually-driven carousel (since the plane had less than 30 passengers, i think), we'd then clamber into the yellow MARELCO (yes, you got that right - Marelco for Marinduque Electric Cooperative, which my sorely-missed and idolized grandfather, Cesar, or Daddy as we all called him, had established to give "life" and "light" to the Island) jeep and soon enough be on the road to Gasan, our hometown.
Gasan is a delightful and charming town, one of the 6 municipalities (the others being: Boac - the capital, Buenavista, Mogpog, Sta. Cruz and Torrijos). It is so small, at least as i remember it, so much so that we would normally ride our bicycles around town from end-to-end in like 20 minutes. Our ancestral home was right behind the munisipyo and so whenever there were town fiestas and dances or "bailes", we could usually just peep over the wall and watch the goings-on in the brightly-lit basketball court, without fear that Lola would scold us for staying out of the house 'til late.
The ancestral house was a stately, huge, two-story provincial home, with the always-cool and slightly damp silong below and a big kitchen in the back (where Lola would usually sit during the day, deftly orchestrating the cacophony made by the cooking crew into a harmonious, mouth-watering, sweet smelling symphony of gastronomic delight - more on the glorious food in a later post).
We, the grandchildren, had one big room all to ourselves, which had big windows bounded by the traditional capiz bintanas, facing the street. There were six beds in the room and, almost always, we would pick any one of the three closest to the windows. That way, at any moment we could simply look down, across the street to Dr. Do's pharmacy-drugstore, the palengke or even Lola Pacita Corral's house way over in front of the beach and see what was going on. Also, because the other three on the other side of the room were directly under the hole in the ceiling crawlspace, they never failed to spook me into imagining the aswang that lived there, waiting for nightfall.
Mornings would find us having a hearty breakfast of typical Filipino / Tagalog fare: suman and fruit or longganisa, tapa, eggs sunny-side up and sinangag. After which, it would be time to either hit the beach or ride about town on our bicycles to visit our cousins in Lola Nena and Lolo Mauro Corral's house, our other cousins in Lolo Rodrigo (Igo) Sotto's house - before they moved to the beachhouse in Bognuyan - or still the other cousins in Lola Pacita Corral's house.
Afternoons would find us lazing in bed, listening to our fave AM radio dramas: Beinte-Quatro Oras, Ruderman (don't think i spelled that right), Gulong ng Palad, Shimatar and, of course, Mr. Lonely). Aaah, the joys of not having cellphones, ipods, dvds and the internet, yet. With our trusty high-end (at the time) Sony cassette recorder, we'd then make our own radio dramas, complete with sound effects (i especially loved doing the horse galloping and neighing, the howling wind and storm or bagyo sounds). Or we'd spend the afternoon "na kinu-kutuhan" while reading the latest Hiwaga or Aliwan komiks. I don't know what it is about having the lice picked out of your hair and then squishing them with your thumbnails - crisp popping sound here - but in a time when spas where still unheard of, THIS was amazingly heavenly and therapeutic. The kids that we were, we even held contests as to who had more lice combed out onto the piece of bond paper on the floor. (I can just hear my younger sister Cris groaning ANO BAAAA!).
This was also the time when records where still the thing and, man, I had mad skills spinning Victor Wood's "Daddy Cool" and "Knock on Wood". It was either that or Nora Aunor's "Blue Hawaii". On a "feeling more cultured" day, we'd listen to Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar".
In the evenings, if it was Bingo Night, we'd walk a block and a half to Lola Pacita's house for the much-awaited event. Lola Pacita was another grand dame, slim, standing tall and always very staid, much like the Queen of England. In those nightly bingo games, she would sit at the head of a long dining table, hair all coiffed up into a silver-gray beehive, dressed, well, almost formally - at least to a kid like me then - and she would call out the letter-numbers in such a Grand manner that it almost felt like we should have been sipping wine and nibbling on goose liver patte and caviar instead of on mani and butong pakwan.
Now I know each generation has its own summer to remember. But somehow, I think summers like those in the '70s in Marinduque were just magical - far beyond today's pre-packaged, instant, tech-driven, resort-laden good times.
Well, those days are long gone but the memories are definitely not long lost.
One day soon, I'll take my wife Rox and my son Kokoy to that heart-shaped Island.
Marinduque is a small, heart-shaped island off the southern coast of Manila.
Back then, there were still flights on Philippine Airlines (turbo-prop pa nga, and they still served cheese pimiento sandwiches with sickeningly sweet orange juice - probably julep or sunny orange) to the Island. Approaching for the landing, the plane would make a graceful turn and you'd get to see the short airstrip where, more often than not, there would be a stray goat ambling along then - ratatat! - well, there'd be kalderata galore for the airport security that night.
Taxiing into the front of the arrival area of the Gen. Arthur Sevilla Airport (named after one of my Lolos), in Barangay Masiga, we would usually see my beloved Lola Grata Sotto Sevilla, a classy and grand old Senora despite her short and stout frame, waving to us (in true Ms. Universe fashion) as we disembarked the plane and hopped-skipped-and-jumped down the rickety stairs. Besides Lola, we'd usually also see Maya (our childhood playmate) and either Aling Thelma (Maya's mother and long-time aide of Lola) or Mang Tomo (Maya's father, right-hand man of Lola and general all-around custodian of the ancestral home).
Quickly getting our baggage from the manually-driven carousel (since the plane had less than 30 passengers, i think), we'd then clamber into the yellow MARELCO (yes, you got that right - Marelco for Marinduque Electric Cooperative, which my sorely-missed and idolized grandfather, Cesar, or Daddy as we all called him, had established to give "life" and "light" to the Island) jeep and soon enough be on the road to Gasan, our hometown.
Gasan is a delightful and charming town, one of the 6 municipalities (the others being: Boac - the capital, Buenavista, Mogpog, Sta. Cruz and Torrijos). It is so small, at least as i remember it, so much so that we would normally ride our bicycles around town from end-to-end in like 20 minutes. Our ancestral home was right behind the munisipyo and so whenever there were town fiestas and dances or "bailes", we could usually just peep over the wall and watch the goings-on in the brightly-lit basketball court, without fear that Lola would scold us for staying out of the house 'til late.
The ancestral house was a stately, huge, two-story provincial home, with the always-cool and slightly damp silong below and a big kitchen in the back (where Lola would usually sit during the day, deftly orchestrating the cacophony made by the cooking crew into a harmonious, mouth-watering, sweet smelling symphony of gastronomic delight - more on the glorious food in a later post).
We, the grandchildren, had one big room all to ourselves, which had big windows bounded by the traditional capiz bintanas, facing the street. There were six beds in the room and, almost always, we would pick any one of the three closest to the windows. That way, at any moment we could simply look down, across the street to Dr. Do's pharmacy-drugstore, the palengke or even Lola Pacita Corral's house way over in front of the beach and see what was going on. Also, because the other three on the other side of the room were directly under the hole in the ceiling crawlspace, they never failed to spook me into imagining the aswang that lived there, waiting for nightfall.
Mornings would find us having a hearty breakfast of typical Filipino / Tagalog fare: suman and fruit or longganisa, tapa, eggs sunny-side up and sinangag. After which, it would be time to either hit the beach or ride about town on our bicycles to visit our cousins in Lola Nena and Lolo Mauro Corral's house, our other cousins in Lolo Rodrigo (Igo) Sotto's house - before they moved to the beachhouse in Bognuyan - or still the other cousins in Lola Pacita Corral's house.
Afternoons would find us lazing in bed, listening to our fave AM radio dramas: Beinte-Quatro Oras, Ruderman (don't think i spelled that right), Gulong ng Palad, Shimatar and, of course, Mr. Lonely). Aaah, the joys of not having cellphones, ipods, dvds and the internet, yet. With our trusty high-end (at the time) Sony cassette recorder, we'd then make our own radio dramas, complete with sound effects (i especially loved doing the horse galloping and neighing, the howling wind and storm or bagyo sounds). Or we'd spend the afternoon "na kinu-kutuhan" while reading the latest Hiwaga or Aliwan komiks. I don't know what it is about having the lice picked out of your hair and then squishing them with your thumbnails - crisp popping sound here - but in a time when spas where still unheard of, THIS was amazingly heavenly and therapeutic. The kids that we were, we even held contests as to who had more lice combed out onto the piece of bond paper on the floor. (I can just hear my younger sister Cris groaning ANO BAAAA!).
This was also the time when records where still the thing and, man, I had mad skills spinning Victor Wood's "Daddy Cool" and "Knock on Wood". It was either that or Nora Aunor's "Blue Hawaii". On a "feeling more cultured" day, we'd listen to Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar".
In the evenings, if it was Bingo Night, we'd walk a block and a half to Lola Pacita's house for the much-awaited event. Lola Pacita was another grand dame, slim, standing tall and always very staid, much like the Queen of England. In those nightly bingo games, she would sit at the head of a long dining table, hair all coiffed up into a silver-gray beehive, dressed, well, almost formally - at least to a kid like me then - and she would call out the letter-numbers in such a Grand manner that it almost felt like we should have been sipping wine and nibbling on goose liver patte and caviar instead of on mani and butong pakwan.
Now I know each generation has its own summer to remember. But somehow, I think summers like those in the '70s in Marinduque were just magical - far beyond today's pre-packaged, instant, tech-driven, resort-laden good times.
Well, those days are long gone but the memories are definitely not long lost.
One day soon, I'll take my wife Rox and my son Kokoy to that heart-shaped Island.
No comments:
Post a Comment