Bobby was conceived and born when I was assigned in Camp Olivas. Pat and I intended to relocate our family there from Pandacan to be close together. I was looking for a house to rent near the Camp but then I was transferred to Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, as S-2, 1st Battalion, IMA.
Among all my children, it was only Bobby’s birth that I witnessed, as it was then a new procedure to let the husband assist during delivery.
Bobby was a “stillborn” child. He was a blue baby. He was not breathing until the doctor placed the oxygen mask on his face, then he started crying! He was like Elix when he was born. But the technique then had been to dip the child from cold to hot water as the doctor flexed the child and slapped his back to make him breathe. There was no oxygen mask then in 1920. Many children died during birth, and mothers, too.
Bobby liked to take a bath under the rain naked when we were in Crame. But we were warned by the doctor that as a stillborn child, he would have weak lungs. Until now, I could hear him having short coughs like my late father did.
In Baguio he visited our neighbors on the Navy Base telling them that I was a pilot. He was a great storyteller and entertainer.
He had a girlfriend who was a white minister’s daughter on Bocaocan Road, Baguio. He even gave her a ring. His dancing partner as a young boy, Ana Jimenez, daughter of Gen. Jimenez, became his girlfriend in Fort del Pilar.
During programs in the PMA, he was a singer.
I enrolled him in the St. Louis College Primary School as Grade I but he did not attend classes, saying that his teacher was PAÑGIT. When I transferred him to the Primary School in Ft. del Pilar, he was happier and claimed that he was number one in Religion because he knew how to pray OUR FATHER. Sicat siya!
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