Father was fond of planting fruit-bearing plants, while Mother was fond of flowering plants. We had bananas, papayas, coconut, cacao, otia, guanaba, tomatoes, kamian, and arimas in our small yard. The use of fertilizer was unknown then except for those who went to school like me and learned gardening. Father used to pour ashes around […]
Archives for 2017
1994 Memoir – 29. Bangued Memories – Pigs
There were two uses of pigs in Bangued when I was a small kid. One is for “lechon” and another is to clean up waste matter, especially human waste after we moved our bowels under the trees. At that time the pigs were free to roam about town, leaving their feces or waste on the […]
1994 Memoir – 28. Bangued Memories – Fighting Cocks & Chickens
Father had lots of chickens and raised fighting cocks. He used to ask me to hold the tail of a rooster and face it towards his rooster as we pulled them back when they tried to fight each other. This was done to strengthen their legs, and we did it many times. Then we would […]
1994 Memoir – 27. Bangued Memories – Ping Pong & Pool
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 […]
1994 Memoir – 26. Bangued Memories – Sungka
I was 17 years old when I left Bangued, but before I leave it behind, I would like to recall some unforgettable experiences in my birthplace. My father and mother were uneducated and did not go to school. They learned how to read and write the local Ilocano dialect from their parents. They could not […]
1994 Memoir – 25. Dead-End Situation
After my graduation from high school, my father had to continue paying for my graduation suit by installment. It cost only two pesos ($10.00), but the pay of a laborer then was fifty centavos (₱.50) a day. Hence, my suit was worth 20 days’ labor. It took Father around one month to pay the installments […]