I bought Tony a bike, which he used to ride every day to the Murphy Market to buy food because we had no refrigerator.
He also bought items for cooking “TORON,” a native delicacy made of fried banana wrapped with paper-like rice wrapper. Across the street was Camp Crame, where he took his TORON for sale to the soldiers, teachers, and students. He made some money.
When he became an officer in the Navy, he went to Crame in uniform with his name tag, and one P.C. officer asked him if he was the son of Capt. Sibayan, the lawyer. When he answered, “Yes, sir!,” the officer jokingly said: “And so you are the boy who used to sell TORON here before!” Tony answered: “Kayo naman, sir.”
Tony also shined shoes of the soldiers and picked up tennis balls for a fee. He was not ashamed to do these things, which I encouraged him to do.
He biked from Crame to the Cubao Elementary School, which was then an uphill climb on dusty, dirty, stony road.
His friends were sons of officers in Crame and Murphy called ARMY BRATS.
He was usually the smallest in the group.
One day he carried Betty on his bike, and they went to see a show near Pepsi-Cola, which was quite a distance from home, and we worried over their long absence.
When he enrolled as a first year high school student in U.P. after graduating from the Cubao Elementary School, he said that he was the only one without pelvic hair during their physical exam. He was just 12 years old then. He rode the Crame 6×6 bus going to U.P. like the other Army kids until he finished 2nd year, then enrolled in Baguio High School.
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