May 8, 1918 - January 25, 2011
One night we were rudely awakened by loud shouts of ORAM! ORAM! (Fire! Fire!), accompanied by the ringing of church bells and beating of drums. I saw Father carry our one-legged heavy table and run away downstairs with it, while … [Continue reading]
One time I climbed the mansanita tree of Tata Benid, our neighbor, while Nita, his young daughter, was up there, and I kissed her! Nita was the only girl in Bangued I courted and wrote love letters, which I placed inside her geometry book after … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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, … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]
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 … [Continue reading]