Sometimes A Great Notion: Part 1 - Plans

"The past is funny ... it never seems to let things lie, finished. It never seems to stay in place as it should"
~ Ken Kesey

"There are some things that can't be the truth even if they did happen"
~ Ken Kesey

Sometime around the advent of the new millennium my father began voicing the desire to return to the Philippines. I didn't think too much of it at first, it was not like he needed my permission to go. I simply said "you should go" and left it at that. Over the next few years he returned to the subject frequently. I didn't know what the problem was, buy a ticket and go. But he seemed uncharacteristically hesitant. This from a guy who left school and home to travel a 100o miles to west Texas to help round up a herd of wild mustangs, put them on rail cars where they were transported to Galveston, then on to a ship and across the ocean to Greece. This from a guy who quit his job and moved his family across the ocean to live and work in the Philippines. This from a guy who over the previous 25 years had visited, lived and worked in rural Mexico, South America, Africa, Nepal, Egypt and had taken several trips to Europe. Often times I wouldn't even know he was out of the country, calling the house week after week with no answer. Finally I learned to call around to his various siblings where I would learn of his whereabouts.

So why should taking a trip to the Philippines be so difficult? Sometime in early 2003 he was talking about it, again, and fed up I said "quit talking about it and just go!".
I'll go if you go

I was totally taken aback. Never in my entire life had he ever expressed needing my help with anything. I didn't know what to say.
I'll go if you go

Up to that point I had never even considered going back, at least not after all these years. There was a time in the late 70's and early 80's when I thought of returning often. But now, nearly 27 years since I had last been there I was rather ambivalent about it. All of the people I had remained in contact with were stateside now, I assumed that the majority of my schoolmates were here as well too. Sure, there were places I'd like to see, foods I'd like to taste again, but I wasn't sure what other motivations there were for me to go. If I wanted to go to a beach, I could go to Mexico for a fraction of the price.

I was married, we were settled into our lives, two out of three kids graduated, we had jobs and pets to attend to. More importantly, the thought of being trapped with my Dad for an extended period of time was not very appealing. Since my marriage, our relationship had slowly improved, but some things don't change and at times it was tenuous at best. Dad had an expression he liked to repeat every time we came to visit:
"Company is like fish, after three days they start to stink"

This was his way of letting us know he didn't want us around too long and certainly was mutually true of our relationship. By the second day I was always ready to leave. I couldn't imagine being stuck with him on a plane for 24 hours, let alone a few weeks. I let the subject drop, but then he brought it up again a month or so later. And again a few weeks after that. And again the next month. He had seized on this idea and wouldn't let it go.

I'll go if you go

My boss was from the Philippines originally, and made the pilgrimage back to see his parents and siblings once a year. I mentioned my father's desire to go back, half thinking that perhaps he could be my dad's travel companion the next time he went. We discussed cost, safety, things to do and see, the best time of year to travel.

Then my father received a letter from Tony Ngoho, one of our former "students" inviting him to come visit. Back when we lived in the Philippines, my mother had come up with an idea of putting a few deserving kids through college. She started with one, and by the time we left eight years later the number had grown to around thirty. A nurse herself, most of the students were in the local nursing program, some pursued BAs, others got their BS degrees, a few went to seminary after college, of which Tony was one. Of all the students who lived with us over the years, Tony was most like family, more like an older brother to me.
I'll go if you go

Slowly, the idea percolated, the desire to return began to outweigh the disadvantages. I thought of bringing my wife, I had always wanted to show her the places I so often talked about. So it was that, in the summer of 2003, having become confused from all the Texas heat, forgetting in an instant all the misery I had gone through over the last 45 years, I finally caved in to my father's request.

Things quickly fell apart from there. The original plan had been for just the two of us to go, the stepmother had no interest in going to the Philippines. Then I modified it to include my wife, and when the stepmother found out that she was going she decided she would go too. This is not what I had envisioned, I had figured that two against one would make the situation manageable, but now, two against two, we were clearly outnumbered. This should have been my first red flag that things were not going to go well. Still, I thought, it shouldn't be too bad, we'll let the old fogies do their own thing and we will go off and have our own adventures. How bad could it be?

So I reluctantly purchased four tickets and contacted a friend in the Philippines to secure reservations for us in February of the coming year. This should have been my second red flag: why was I buying the tickets?

Dad wrote Tony and together we made an itinerary. You would think after growing up with the guy I would have remembered how easily sidetracked the old cuss could get. This should have been my third red flag; Dad never sticks to the plan. My wife and I scheduled vacation time, applied for passports and waited. Mine was a simple renewal and came back quickly, but this was her first passport and weeks went by, the departure date loomed. She was beginning to panic, then, just a few days before we were scheduled to leave it arrived! It was time to go.

In February of 2005 we boarded a plane for Detroit where we would meet up with Dad and the Stepmother. There we would board another flight bound for the Philippines. We checked in and waited, and waited. Boarding was announced and still no sign of them. We had their tickets and just as we were about to go up to the counter, here they come wandering over. They had gone to get something to eat and didn't hear the boarding announcement.

The jumbo jet was packed, mostly with Filipinos, a smattering of Japanese and Koreans; we were among the handful of Caucasians. Looking out over a sea of dark heads from our seats near the rear of the jet, my father commented on how many Filipinos were on our flight. Standing up to see what he was talking about, the stepmother said with her megaphone voice:

How can you tell? They all look alike to me... Now, Do all Filipinos have black hair?

Four hundred heads turned around to see who was addressing them. Mortified, we slid down in our chairs and hid our faces. My father tried to distract her, getting her to sit back down by saying he is going to teach her a few Tagalog words, starting with the word for "thank you":
Dad: Salamat
Stepmon: Sayluhmet
Dad: Salamat
Stepmom: Sayloomet
Dad: Sa. la. mahht.
Stepmom: Say. lay. met.
Dad: Salamat ...

That was when my wife and I realized that we had made a horrible mistake. But it was too late, the doors were closed and we were rolling down the runway. Their loud voices penetrated our earphones and drowned out both music and movie.
Dad: Salamat
Stepmon: Sayluhmet
Dad: Salamat
Stepmom: Sayloomet
Dad: Sa. la. mahht.
Stepmom: Say. lay. met.
Dad: Salamat ...

My wife looked like she wanted to scream, she turned to me and mimed stabbing herself with a knife. Their "conversation" continued on until the flight attendants arrived to ask what we wanted to drink, and then picked right back up again til we got our meals. It was going to be a long flight.

From Detroit we headed north into Canada, the pilot commenting on the cities as we passed over them. Looking out over the snowy landscape below the stepmom turns to my dad and says:
What is that white stuff on the ground?
"Snow" my dad says. She is quiet awhile, pondering this bit of information.
But, does it snow in Canada?

Heads turn again. Oh my God. She was a schoolteacher for thirty years. We pretend we are asleep.

After listening to the same word being repeated for 20 hours, we finally landed in Nagoya, Japan. We disembarked so they could clean the plane, lemmings in an endless queue: out the door, up flights of stairs, down long halls only to find that our destination was the restrooms! For the men it was a fairly quick and painless procedure, but entirely different for the women. My wife found herself in a slow moving line, eventually ending up before a row of stalls. The woman in the stall directly in front of her seemed to be having some difficulty, bumping and banging against the door. Finally, the door opened and to my wife's horror there was no toilet, only a metal framed hole in the floor! Fortunately, the stall next to it became available and it did have a toilet, so she scurried into it before someone else could claim it!

Leaving the restrooms we re-queued and snaked our way back to the plane. Back on board we happily discovered that our surly flight attendants have been replaced with a bevy of laughing, smiling, cheerful Filipino attendants. Their mood was infectious and soon we were all smiling and chatting with our seatmates. Maybe it was just getting a break from our long flight, maybe it was knowing that soon we would be there, but that last leg of journey went by in no time at all.