PING-PONG
We converted our dining table into a ping-pong table by placing a piece of wood in the middle for a net and used paddles home-made out of wooden boxes.
Father played with us. He was good. Mother was not interested, saying that she would rather spend her time beating up the laundry with her laundry paddle. We had no washing machine then.
POOL
We had a wooden pool table that rotated on a stand. Elix and I started playing when we were small by standing on a chair.
The balls were round flat pieces of wood like the size of a big bottle cap, and the BATO, or big (white) ball was twice the size of the small balls.
We turned the pool table around to position our shots into the holes at the far corners of the pool table.
At first our game would start peacefully, until one of us jerked the table and moved the balls from their places, then pushed the rotating table furiously around until the wooden, flat balls would fly up and down to the floor!
Sometimes Elix and I would do FENCING, using the TAKO, or pool sticks, as swords or spears. Then the flat, round balls would become like small flying saucers headed for each other.
Elix had a palm line called RAPAS, a line straight across both palms of his hands. A palmist said that this is a sign that when one with that palm line is angry, he will throw or do anything to defeat or KILL the other person he is fighting with.
That is why Elix became a good boxer and was an amateur boxer, fighting several bouts in the movie theatre of Bangued before he went to Manila.
In Manila he was attacked by a drunken thug at a bus stop while he was waiting for a bus to go to work. As the bus approached, the tough guy aimed a punch to the face of Elix, who was leaning on a cement wall. Elix ducked, and the guy punched the wall! The bus passengers who saw the action cheered Elix as he stepped inside the bus. They heckled the tough guy, who was nursing his bleeding fist!
I was very good in pool and often missed my classes, playing pool and betting against weaker players near our school building.
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