Part 31: The 1973-74 School Year Begins

"I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist
and that there are few great teachers as there are few great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the
medium is the human mind and spirit"
~ John Steinbeck


"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school"
~Albert Einstein

Well, that summer was one of the worst yet and I was partly to blame. It was the first summer where I did not cut my hair before I got home. Mildly put, this drove my Dad nuts. It was the cause of a daily round of belittling and beration: "I have a daughter now! Bakla!". But I stuck to my guns and grimly marked out the days on the calender, counting out the days before my release.

Finally, one rainy August morning I found myself boarding a plane back to Manila. I was going to arrive a full two weeks before school started but I couldn't take it any more. I think my parents suspected that I was leaving early but were glad to see me go. I lost no time upon my arrival in Manila and took a cab straight to the PNR bus depot and caught the next departure for Baguio. Five hours and five thousand feet later I was home. With the first waft of cool mountain air a sense of freedom and tranquility came over me. This is where I belonged.

When I arrived at Brent I was excited to be the first student moving into the New Dorm, bright and shiny, smelling of varnish and stain. No one seemed to mind that I was back for the school year early, Mr and Mrs Pettitt were already moved in to the dorm masters suite on the main floor. Juniors and Seniors on the top floor, Freshmen and Sophomores on the main floor and all other grades on the lowest floor. I found my room quickly, my name was taped to the first door I checked. Jaime's was down the hall but I moved his name to the door across from mine, our rooms were right by the side entrance (I didn't know it yet but that would come in very handy whenever we needed to enter or exit the dorm undetected). All the rooms in our new dorm were identical: dark stained paneled walls, matching parquet flooring and garish orange, yellow, white and avocado green curtains. Each room was furnished with two metal bed frames, two over-sized desks/bookshelf units that also served as room partitions and one large double wardrobe. It was too late to get pillows and bedding from Mrs Tabafunda, but I had some sheets and blankets of my own, so I dug my foot locker out of storage, unpacked and then went down the hall to get a mattress. One of the rooms was full of mattresses and another was crammed full with assorted pieces of small furniture. It was a gold mine. This was one of the advantages to getting back to school so early, first dibs on rooms, furniture and mattresses. I started going through them, trying to find the best one, testing them out first. One of them was a real mattress with matching foundation, I realized that this must have been Mr. Craig's. I settled on one and was dragging it down to my room when I thought why not? So I went back and took the mattress and foundation, now I was the only boarding student with a decent bed!

The next morning after breakfast I went and got my class schedule from the registrar and headed over to the bookstore to get my books and supplies for the year. There were a lot of required reading books on the list for my English class taught by a Giussepe De Rugeriis? Must be a new teacher. After stowing them in my locker I went back to the dorm to sign out and then went to the cashier and signed for some "incidentals" cash. I learned this technique from Norman, instead of painfully saving my allowance for the things I needed like shampoo, toothpaste, soap, underwear, socks and shoes, I could get cash from the office as long as I provided an explanation for the need and provide receipts if requested. I headed straight for Lambino's Tailors on lower Session Road to pick out some Ramie fabric and get myself measured for some new pants. Then I navigated the department stores up and down Session Road picking up the additional items I needed.

The time went quickly, I spent my days at the library or in my room reading the books on my English required reading list. It didn't bother me that there weren't any kids around, I'd watch a little TV after supper at night, sometimes some of the teachers would invite me to go to the movies. The following week boarders started arriving, one one day, two the next and by the end of the week the dorm was full. Next door was a tall, gangly kid from England, Gordon Strachan. He kind of looked like a cross between David Bowie and Mick Jagger. He had a great stereo system and a huge record collection. He didn't think too much of me but I thought he was alright.

That first weekend before school started I learned the meaning of "a woman scorned". I found myself lying in front of the fireplace between two girls, one two grades above me and the other one grade below; we were watching the flames and listening to Jaime play his guitar. I liked the older girl better, but it never occurred to me that she would even consider me. So I turned my attentions to the other girl. Bad mistake, not only did she turn out to be crazy but the other girl was really pissed. Scary pissed. Over the next few weeks she took time to let me know how I screwed up and what I was missing out on. I already was miserable from my choice and she really seemed to enjoy twisting the knife.

After two years at Brent, Jaime and I had developed our own rituals and routines. That first Sunday night before school we selected a table in the dining hall that was to become "our table" for the next three years. Located next to the windows in the center of the hall, we had a fine view of the evening sunsets. Jaime sat at the head of the table with me on his right. Leigh Gilmore sat on his left and three new boarders Cecily Drury, Lulie Lawry and Leeanne Colvin joined us. This league was not set in stone, depending on how we were getting along the members changed, but basically this was our group.

The school year started and right away there was a tangible difference in my English classes.
Guissepe de Rugiris aka "Rug" was a whirlwind on two feet. He introduced himself and then announced that we would start each class with a vocabulary quiz, not only that but we would have these quizzes daily for the remainder of the year. Most days the class would end with another test on the days topics. Right after the quiz he launched right into literature. His classes were whirlwinds too. Besides the text books he would assign one book a week, sometimes two, and that was Di riguer, a mash up of world literature from the ancient Greece to the Americas. Austin, Borges, Cervantes, Crane, Chekov, Eliot, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Knowles, Potok, Remarque, Salinger, Sophocles and Steinbeck in no particular order. Our heads were swimming with new characters: Asher, Agamemnon, Beowulf, Clytemnestra, Electra, Holden, Phineas and Silas. To help us keep up he showed some of us some speed reading techniques.

His classes were a mix of history, poetry, opera, literature and declamation: Rug would chant, recite, yell, sing and laugh, always pushing us to analyze, think, ponder and contemplate. What is this book telling us? How does it make you feel? How does this relate to your own life? What are the parallels? He was changing the way I thought, the way I viewed the world. I would never see things the same.

Part 30: Prodigal Summer

"And I am not worthy to be called thy son:
make me as one of thy hired servants"~ Luke 15: 19

"The Prodigal Son returns!"

This was my father's standard form of greeting now that I was away at boarding school. From the moment I arrived at our house on the outskirts of Tacloban I knew it was going to be a miserable summer. OK, to be fair, I already knew it was going to be miserable before I got there.

Dad's favorite parable from the Bible is the story of the Prodigal Son. I never liked the implications that went along with his salutation. A little young yet to be a regular patron of gambling joints, dirty bars and brothels, I could only assume that he felt that my time at Brent was equivalent to squandering away the family fortune. Although he went to great lengths to state his views on this subject, he never slipped rings on my fingers or sent servants to kill the fatted calf for a feast. I always felt that he was waiting for me to beg for forgiveness, ask to live in the pigpen and fight for scraps with the hogs. I didn't, so instead he set me to work.

Within hours of my arrival I was busy painting the same bodega I had painted last summer, Keith came strolling by on his way to the kitchen for a snack, he paused and smirked."I told dad the shed needed painting"
He was not too happy to have me home, my being there tipped the power balance between the four brothers. When he left I quickly slapped some paint on the big 8x8 posts that held up the water tank. I knew he would be back shortly to gloat. Sure enough he soon came back with a bottle of pop and a piece of cake and leaned up against the water tower to watch me work. I painted in silence while he made snide remarks, secure in the knowledge that payback is a bitch."Watching you work is making me tired, I think I'll go watch some TV"
He went into the house and I stopped mid brush stroke to listen for the eruption that was about to begin. I could hear the sounds of the channels changing on the TV.
Sure enough, there it was. A hollow THUNK made by knuckles on the skull followed by "*!#*! you are getting paint all over the *#% couch!" Then the swish and swat, swat, swat of metal hitting flesh as the Sword of Damocles was applied to his posterior.
My stomach turned over. Screams. Crying.
Somehow I had forgotten how bad it got; my revenge made me sick. More cursing and swatting. I hurriedly turned back to my painting, the sound of my brush drowning out the crying now turned to stifled sobbing. I turned my thoughts back to the previous two weeks and my best friend, Jaime.

Two weeks prior I was back at the dorm, my trunk was already packed and labeled for storage, my little suitcase sitting by my bed. I was watching Jaime packing up his stuff, his father would be arriving in the morning to pick him up. I kind of wished my family were more like his. There was always lots of hugging and laughing when they arrived for one of their frequent visits during the school year, lots of tears when they left. Then Mrs Pettitt came into the room and handed me a telegram: it was from Mom and I had permission to go! Two weeks with Jaime and Mark Becker!

In the Beginning, Jaime and I were thrown together by the fact that our beds were next to each other in our big common dorm room, as we got to know each other better we found many similarities in our backgrounds. Although he had been in the Philippines seven years longer than I had and could speak Ilocano fluently, we both had grown up in remote, rural areas of the Philippines and had spent more time with Filipinos than with Americans. We were comfortable in our "Filipino" skins and were used to a more Spartan lifestyle, we ate and enjoyed the foods of our regions from the most simple to the more exotic. We both had loud, noisy households, our parents were hard working and independent, we each had three siblings and we had been raised by a large extended family of students and helpers.

There were a few "lifer" missionaries living in various remote parts of the Philippines who had "gone native". When they showed up at the Mission Guest House in Malate with their kids they really stood out, they were uncomfortable and awkward, speaking heavily accented English.

Jaime and I were almost, but not quite, to that point: the remoteness from all things Western and other American kids had really left an imprint on us. Going to Brent was a momentous change, thrusting us from a rural provincial lifestyle into the Western World. From the moment we met in August of 1971 we instinctively drew closer to each other. We both joined the Boy Scouts and signed up for the same extra curricular activities. We both shared a love of reading and going to the movies. Already good buddies when the 1972-73 school year started, by the end of the year our friendship was firmly entrenched. He was charismatic, outgoing, more athletic and smarter; excelling was what he did best. I wasn't much of a challenge for him, but every now and then he gave me a break from his relentless level of competitiveness. He would talk to me way into the wee hours when he was unhappy or frustrated and he knew that I could relate to the things that were bothering him. I guess I made a pretty good sidekick, although I think he wished I had better skills with a basketball and at least some kind of musical ability.

Jaime's dad picked us up at our dorm the next morning and we headed out. We would be making several stops before we reached their home in the town of Solano, north of Baguio, in the Cagayan Valley, the rice basket of the Philippines. This was Jaime's stomping ground, he knew the area as well as I knew Leyte. The scenery was wildly varied, from the rugged mountains to the rolling grasslands that conjured up visions of Tolkien's Middle Earth. I daydreamed about Hobbits and Orcs while Becker, Jaime and his dad chattered away in Ilocano; occasionally I would catch a word or phrase I would understand. This made me the butt of some jokes by Jaime's dad. I took it in stride and Jaime made a point of using English so I was not too left out. We made some stops at churches in towns where they used to live; at Bayombong and Tuguegarao where we slept on the concrete floor of the church.

Summer was in full swing in the high plains. By the time we got to Solano it was already very hot. We went to bed sweating and we woke up sweating. We sweated all day long. The only relief was to take a bath in the open air bath house located just outside the kitchen door. Jaime's dad would coat himself with talcum powder every day after his bath. There with a tabo and a bucket of water we would douse ourselves, soap up and rinse away the sweat, sometimes twice a day. The house was a big rambling old two story with a large tree filled yard surrounded by tall concrete walls. We would get up early, the droning sounds of cicadas a background to the enormous silence of the morning heat. Breakfast was instant coffee and fresh pandesal, sweetened condensed milk used for creamer and a topping for the rolls. In the early morning hours we would take a bucket and collect the giant snails that crawled along the walls (the same kind of snails my dad crushed and fed to our chickens). Then, filling the bucket with fresh water we would rinse them off. Some of them must have known what was coming because they kept trying to crawl away. On the stove a big pot of salted water was boiling and they scooped the snails up and dropped them in. When they were done Jaime would grab one and suck them right out of the shell. I could not do that yet, but did dig them out with a fork. The food here was familiar yet very different than I had experienced in the Visayas. Here various forms of lugao, sometimes with fish, other times with chicken, beef or pork was served over rice were common at every meal.

Jaime's parents had come out to the Philippines separately from the US in the early 50's as single missionaries. They both spoke Ilocano fluently, but still maintained a faint echo of their American accents and would frequently switch back and forth from English to Ilocano during their conversations. While his dad was deceptively quiet and soft spoken, his mother was slightly more boisterous. Their home was filled with guitars, laughter and music and they sang the evening prayer at dinner time. I never saw any of the kids punished, whenever they did something he didn't like he would give them a look, say their name and they would burst into tears. The worst punishment seemed to be when he would say "I am so disappointed in you"; this was so crushing to Jaime and his siblings. His father continued to take great delight in teasing Becker and I. Apparently my buttons were easier to push than Becker's, because he soon devoted a great deal of his free time on me. When I couldn't take it any more I would get up from the table and go outside. He would say in Ilocano to Jaime "I think I hurt his feelings" and call for me to come back. I didn't understand it and asked Jaime why his dad was always picking on me. He didn't really have an answer and just brushed it aside. Most of the time it was simply teasing, but other times it seemed more specific. I began to realize that unlike my father he never criticized Jaime. Instead, he voiced his concerns about Jaime through his conversations with me. When he wanted to talk to Jaime about smoking he would "Say, Mark why do you have cigarettes in your pocket?" Well, they weren't just mine, they were communal property. Because he was so well known in Solano, Jaime had me go to the Sari Sari store to buy cigarettes and alcohol. Jaime's dad always managed to find out about it. I was a good soldier and did the deed and took the heat.

The big event for them that summer was a wedding, one of their students was getting married. Jaime's house was packed full of people, lots of singing and guitar playing. There was a huge meal after the ceremony followed by more singing and then more food. At some point we wandered outside to escape the hubbub only to discover that despite being Methodists there was quite a bit of drinking going on outside the gate in a dark corner. The groom invited us over and we managed to take a few swigs of beer and some rum before Jaime's little brother was sent with a message "Dad wants you to come in now." I thought we were going to really catch it and steeled myself for the expected explosion. His father was waiting for us and proceeded to give Becker and I a lecture on the perils of underage drinking and then he quietly said "Maawatam? do you understand"
"Wen" Jaime whispered.
Then he said very softly, in a whisper that roared,"Kababain ka"

That night as I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, I pondered his life and mine, wondering which I'd rather have. The prodigal sons were chaffing at the bit.

Part 29: Dorm Daze

"I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets...

My mind's distracted and diffused

My thoughts are many miles away

They lie with you when you're asleep..."

- Paul Simon

Both Jaime and I were growing. Well, you could actually tell Jaime was getting bigger, I was just not getting any shorter next to him, so it just looked like I wasn't growing. We were always starving by supper time. Domingo, the waiter in charge of our table, tried to keep our bellies full by sneaking food when the other waiters were not paying attention. This usually was not a problem as there was always food leftover on the other tables. Most of the boarders complained about the food and would not eat it, which kept Freddie busy cooking burgers and fries right up to the time he closed the canteen. After supper these students dipped into their own larders or patronized the dorm canteens. Anything to keep from having to eat our weekly boarders fare; Shepherd's Pie, Tuna Casserole, Creamed Chipped Beef or Chicken ala King over noodles or toast, that some kids called shit on a shingle. While it was nothing like Auring's cooking I usually was too hungry to care. Most of it was pretty good and there were always lots of fresh vegetables. Domingo liked that we ate our veggies and would always bring us more from the other tables. Sometimes this was the only thing left over and one night Jaime and I really went to town on the steamed cauliflower. Bowls of it. A little salt and margarine and it was just fine. We hungrily shoveled down about three full serving bowls a piece, a sure recipe for disaster.

My roommate was away for the weekend and Jaime was in my room spending the night. I had the covers tucked in tight around my neck and was desperately trying not to pass gas when I heard Jaime let one go in the bunk next to me. A loud, long drawn out affair. We both cracked up laughing and that made me fart too. We laughed some more and that made us fart more. As those of you who have had cauliflower gas know, the aroma is deadly; the scent of which made us laugh harder, which in turn generated more explosions. This went on for quite sometime. We were getting dizzy from all the fumes so at some point I got up and stumbled over to the windows to let in a little fresh air, never dreaming that the gases escaping from my room would now be sucked in to any open windows around the dorm.

During a lull in the gas barrage we heard our dorm master, Mr Pettitt in the hallway asking Norman if he smelled anything: "Can you check the toilets down here and see if there is anything backing up? I can smell it upstairs but it seems stronger down here."
We burst into laughter again and Mr Pettitt knocked on our door and stuck his head in. His face got all screwed up like he was choking and he grabbed his nose and leapt back out of the room.
"Oh, Jeeezuus! You Guys!!! Open a damn window and air out this room!"
Between fits of laughter and more farting I pointed at the wide open windows and choked out They are!

I was becoming more aware of how time seemed to stop or slow down at Brent. Some weeks so many new and interesting things would happen that it was hard to process them all. Other times a weekend would seem like it lasted a month. Then all of sudden there was a change to remind me that time was moving on. The "new dorm" was like that. I don't ever remember seeing any workers, all the construction seemed to go on while we were in class. It grew so gradually that we barely noticed the day to day changes, it seemed that it always had been under construction. One day it was just a hole in the ground with stakes marking out the footprint and the next the Board of Directors, parents and alumni showed up for the ribbon cutting ceremony and an open house to show off the new structure. It was strikingly out of place amongst the old, turn of the century green and white wooden buildings around campus; it was a reminder that time was marching forward, even on the timeless, ageless Brent campus.

Three stories high, a modern concrete and steel exterior and on the inside parquet floors, mahogany paneling throughout and a massive fireplace in the main sala. Each floor had its own sala, the top two overlooking the main floor living area. There was a large kitchenette on bottom floor, and a TV room in the basement. The rooms were enormous by previous standards. Although the original blueprints called for each room to have a balcony, this feature had been eliminated much to our disappointment. The best thing of all were the gleaming modern bathrooms, all white tile and chrome. Each floor had its own, with plenty of sinks, shower stalls, toilets and urinals to insure a minimal wait in the morning. The girls were extremely jealous of the new building and wondered why the stinky boys got the fancy dorm. We couldn't wait to move in and were sorely disappointed when we found out we would have to wait till next year to try it out. However, one weekend the water heaters went out in the Infirmary. Mr Pettitt told us we could go across the way and use the showers in the new dormitory. Most of the dorm turned out, grabbing our towels and shaving kits and headed across, each one picking a floor and shower to try out. It was wonderful, lots of hot water, clean, no peeling paint or musty mildew odors. With so many shower stalls we all got done about the same time. We were walking through the main living area when someone said "Let's Streak!". Back in early 70's streaking was front page news, for Brent boarders it was old hat, a common hazing punishment was to be turned out of the dorm naked. Within seconds we all had our towels over our shoulders and whooping and hollering we raced across to the Infirmary. I don't know if Brent has ever had so many naked teenagers running about at one time before or since.

For some reason, the last few months of school seemed to go by in a flurry of activities; Field Day, Moving Up Day and Final Exams. Some students were dreading the exams, but I was more worried about what came after that: summer vacation. I wasn't looking forward to heading home that year, so when Jaime invited Mark Becker and I to spend a few weeks at his home in Solano, Nueva Viscaya I eagerly accepted. I had written my parents to ask for permission and was still waiting for a reply.


So, I was despondently walking back to the dorm after my last final exam when whizzz! a piece of chalk flew past my ear. This was quickly followed by several more projectiles that bounced off my head. I looked up and there was Mr Jenista grinning at me from the classroom window.

A former Brent student himself, he was the dorm father of Hamilton Hall and taught Southeast Asian History, my favorite class that year; he was my favorite teacher during my time at Brent. He was strict, smart, funny and knew how to make history come alive. I looked forward to his class everyday.

I usually sat at his table at lunch time during the school week; Pat Dillon, Kent Rounds and I would try and sneak vinegar or patis into his drinking glass when he wasn't looking. He would take a sip, stop and a ghost of a smile would play about his lips. This was either good or bad depending on his mood and the situation. We had a good relationship, I worked hard, studied and got good grades and he reciprocated by putting up with my antics. On the first day of class he read through the syllabus and gave us the class rules.
"Pay attention, listen carefully and take notes, I will not repeat myself."
Excuse me sir, what did you say?
"I will not repea..." that ghost of a smile played about his lips.

So, it was no surprise to see him there throwing chalk at me. School was over for the year and he was getting some payback! I gathered up the pieces of chalk that littered the ground around my feet and began firing them back at him. He ducked, laughed and threw more at me. He was a much better shot and seemed to have an unlimited supply of ammunition. I ran around to the other side of the room and climbed through a window to press my attack. He raced to the window and picked me up and and unceremoniously dumped me head first out the window where I lodged face down in the hedge. I couldn't see very good and I seemed to be stuck; I felt a sharp pain in my left eye. Mr Jenista came out with several of my classmates and they pulled me from the hedge. My face felt warm and sticky and I reached up to feel my eye when someone grabbed my wrist. "Don't touch it!" he said as he propelled me towards the nurse's office. One of the small branches that had stopped my fall had broken off and a piece of it was now sticking out of my eye socket. We reached the clinic and the nurse looked at me and said "Oh it's you again." She always seemed to be a little put out when we came to her to tend to our injuries. I had been in the month before after fracturing my hand during a rough game of 2 on 2 basketball with Pat Dillon, Jaime and Joey Butler. She got on the phone and called Dr. Pavia to come over to Brent and look me over and while we waited for him to arrive she cleaned the blood off my face. My eye was really hurting now and I was starting to panic about the possibility of losing my eye. The doctor arrived and carefully removed the stick and put some dye in my eye which really burned. He wanted me to open my eye and that was really hard to do, but I finally got it open. Other than some scratches to the cornea and a gouge in the corner of my eye socket, it seemed to be OK. The stick had broken off before it was driven in too deep. He put some ointment in my eye and put a heavy gauze patch over it, gave me some pain killer and told me to lie still for a few hours. By the time I got to the dining hall that night everyone had heard about it and came over to gawk at my black elastic eye patch, the fact that it covered a slightly bloody piece of gauze greatly enhancing their sympathy and my status. Mr Jenista felt real bad and at dinner that night I played it up for a while, but I liked him too much to keep it up for long. I did, however, have a deep pink scar that ran from the bridge of my nose to the edge of the eye socket. I used to turn my head so the scar would show and tap my nose just to pester him.

Part 28: East of the Sun, West of the Moon

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet"

~Rudyard Kipling


"Well, it's a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies"
~ Van Morrison

Most of the boarding student rules revolved around preventing smoking, drinking, drugs and sex. None were very effective. A big priority for the dorm parents was keeping us occupied and out of mischief, to us it seemed to be their sole mission in life. Many kids were well versed in the arts of evasion and concealment and we kept them on their toes during the school week, but especially so on the weekends; we were a handful. What they and the administration didn't seem to understand was that most of these skills and vices were acquired long before they ever got to Brent.

One weekend we were just hanging out around campus and a friend of mine said "you want to see something? " We went into the empty senior lounge next to the dining hall and to the restroom where he pulled the medicine cabinet out of the wall. There in the now empty nook was a little ledge formed by the 2x4 framing studs and on it were a syringe, an oil lamp, a spoon and a length of rubber tube. I was shocked. I knew some of the older kids smoked pot, but I had no idea that this was going on. We had just seen the movie "Dusty and Sweets McGee" in gym class. I hated shots and needles and the scenes of the addicts injecting heroin into their tongues really freaked me out.

After drugs, the faculty were especially concerned about keeping the boys and girls from teaching each other about the birds and the bees. This was especially difficult on Brent's big campus, there were so many places a couple could sneak off to.

So, the Faculty opened and staffed the library on the weekends, they organized weekend volleyball and basketball games between students and teachers/staff. They took turns chaperoning trips on Friday and Saturday nights to the Pines, Session or John Hay movie theaters. I participated in as many of those activities that I could, even the ones I wasn't really interested in. But the one activity that Boarders rarely skipped, the most fun form of school sponsored Boarder entertainment were the beach trips. It was counter intuitive really, putting boys together with girls in their swimsuits, because a lot of students on these trips broke most of the aforementioned rules.

For most of us it was simply a great way to get away, and for the boarders it didn't cost anything extra. Day students could sign up too, they just had to pay for the meals. Most of my friends usually went and I don't think I ever missed a trip. The long, wide white sand beaches along the Lingayen gulf were free of trash, the water clear. Vendors would rent inner tubes for fifty centavos and we would hook ourselves together and float down the coast. Older students would sneak down the beach to one of the Sari Sari stores where, for a peso they buy a cold bottle of San Miguel beer or a pack of cigarettes. After supper we would watch the sunset, then sit around the campfires, playing guitar, singing songs, roasting marshmallows. It was very romantic and many relationships blossomed after one of these trips. We would get up in the middle of the night and swim in the ocean, under water we would wave our arms, causing the phosphorescent plankton to light up like a scene from Fantasia.

So, once the monsoon season started to die down, sign up sheets started appearing on the little table in the dining hall. Sometimes the trips were just for the day, most often they were overnight campouts. We would load up the bus and head down the mountain to one of the many resorts located near the town of San Fernando, La Union. Cresta Ola, Long Beach, Nalinac and Bauang were just some of the places we stayed. Or rather, campout at. While the students pitched tents in a coconut grove near the beach, some of the chaperones would get a room or two. This way we had access to showers and flushing toilets and sometimes a swimming pool. Depending on how many students signed up, the school would send a corresponding number of cooks along and sometimes the school nurse.

We are on the bus going back to Baguio late one afternoon, I was sitting on the rolled up tents in the aisle near the back of the bus. A senior and his girlfriend were on the seat next to me, on the other side were Norman and Angel. A couple of the teacher chaperones were sitting four rows up and they kept turning around and glowering at the couple next to me. When we finally arrived back at Brent they pounced on them as they alighted from the bus. After a brief argument, the boy was ordered back to his dorm and they escorted the girl back to Hamilton Hall. The word quickly spread, Toy and Becky were in trouble for engaging in sexual activity on the bus! They were being recommended for expulsion or suspension. We couldn't believe it, we had been sitting right there talking the whole way back and had not seen any illicit behavior. Norman was outraged and spent the night cutting up pairs of black dress pants into 3 inch wide strips to use as armbands. He went room to room the next morning instructing us to tie them on and wear a jacket or sweater over it. My roommate didn't want to wear one, but I said I would. One of the girls in Hamilton Hall had been working on the same thing and she passed around the home made armbands to the girl boarders. Before flag raising that day Norman handed out more of them to the day students. Some students were afraid to wear them, but many did. Then, right before the flag raising ceremony, at his signal, we all took off our jackets or sweaters. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest as I followed suit. Some students bowed their heads and raised their right arm, fist clenched as the athletes had in the 1968 Olympics. Most of us just stood at attention, eyes fixed straight ahead. We heard the gasp from some of the teachers and you could feel the ripple of fear run through the crowd. It was scary and empowering at the same time. Like most things that happened at Brent, it was the climax to what would be a rather anti-climatic day. After flag raising Norman and a few other students met with Dr McGee and Mr Craig and presented their frustrations with the charges. Eventually this would lead to Toy and Becky being given separate disciplinary hearings where they both were acquitted. Still it was exciting, even if only for a brief moment, to be standing up against something we thought was wrong. Student Power!


I went on another beach trip later that school year, this time it was just a small group of boarders and we all fit into the maroon Chevy suburban type vehicle that Brent had. One of the kids parents worked for Voice of America and had reserved the guest house down at the beach for us.

The VOA maintained a guest house at their relay station which was right next to the US Air Force's Wallace Air Station located along the tip of Poro Point. Although there was a winding staircase down the cliffs to a tiny secluded private beach, one of the big drawing points was the large swimming pool. The guest house was appointed like an American style motel: carpet, TV (with American programs!), American sized beds and comfortable mattresses. We spent the afternoon swimming and then went over to Wallace Air Station to have milk shakes, burgers and fries at the rec center. It was a little strange after being in the boonies all these years to find this tiny little corner of America right here in the Philippines; odd to think that all the food we were eating had been shipped all the way from the US out here to this little base in the tropics.

When we got back to the guest house we found that we had locked our keys inside our rooms. I went around back to see if by any chance someone had left a window open and as I turned the corner of the house there it was.

Rising up out of the South China Sea was an enormous, almost blood red full moon. I had never seen anything like it before, I have never seen anything like it since. It seemed to fill the entire horizon and I awed and humbled by its immensity. Forgetting why I had walked back there in the first place I was drawn towards it, till at last I was standing on the edge of the cliff. I felt rather than saw Kathy come up beside me, she must have come to see where I was. We stood there in silence for what seemed like hours, watching the moon slowly rise. I knew she could feel the strength and power of the moment too.

I really liked her, but for some reason could never find a way to express my feelings for her. Now here she was, next to me in this most romantic setting, I could feel the hairs on my arm brushing against hers. I knew her fingers must only be millimeters away from mine. I wanted so badly to take her hand in mine, but I couldn't make my hand move. I don't know if it was fear of rejection or simply that I didn't want to ruin our friendship if she didn't have those kind of feelings for me. Maybe it was both.

We watched the moon rise, the orange light mirrored in the sea below us. Then we quietly walked back to the guest house, having never said a word. My heart ached. Our magic time had come and gone. There would never be a moment like that between us again.

Full moons always make me think of all the things in my life that might have been, they especially remind me of that night.

Part 27: Of Mice and Men

"Tell me like you done before,
about them other guys and about us...
"Guys like us ain't got nobody in the world
that gives a hoot n' hell about em."
~ John Steinbeck

"Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me, what's my lesson?
Look right through me, look right through me"
~ Roland Orzabal

It is funny how real life mirrored the books we were reading. Maybe that is why the book one person loves is a book another person can't bear to read, because a story hits a little close to home; somethings in life are just too painful.

If you look carefully at the class photos in the yearbook you can see the the guarded looks, the uncertainty and fear in some of the faces.

New Kids: we all bore some scars. Having become global nomads at a young age, some having been ripped from parents that loved them, some from parents who were indifferent at best. Transferring from country to country, school to school, most of us were inwardly nervous those first days, weeks and months. Would we fit in, would we be accepted, would we have friends? Brent was pretty good at absorbing new students into the group, but there were always those who were on the fringe, those that kept to themselves and never seemed to make friends.

The 1972-73 school year brought a wave of new students to Brent, the U.S. Department of Defense parents were sending their kids out of the war zones. In January we got another batch of new students, a mixed lot of private business and military related kids. Some were boarders like Robin Ennis, Terry Drye, Leigh Gilmore, Beth and Kathy Duncan, Bill Rassmussen and others were day students: Anna Marie Franco, Dayne and September Florence.

Leigh, Terry and the Duncan sisters soon became part of my circle of boarder friends. They joined me, Jaime Case and sometimes Peg Hamill at the same table at supper time. I really liked Robin and Kathy. Kathy was blond with pretty eyes and a big smile, we became friends and would go shopping or to movies together but that is as far as it ever went. I didn't understand yet that just because you like someone in a certain way doesn't mean they like you in that way too.

Robin was a cute little redhead and because I liked her I teased her. A lot. I was an ass. The more I teased her the more she didn't like me. One day, fed up with me, first she blurted out something that I didn't understand, and then something else that I did; I avoided her after that. Later she apologized and I guess she meant it, I told her I was sorry for teasing her; but there are some things once spoken that always stand between two people.

We all had our little quirks and peculiarities: my roommate would wash his pens and pencils, scrub his notebook and school book covers; Jaime's leg would bounce up and down at the dinner table causing the silverware to vibrate; he had this habit of tearing up paper into tiny little pieces which was quite annoying when it happened to be your homework. Beth had a loud booming laugh and if you got her going she would snort too. Kathy liked to try different things on her ice cream: salt, pepper, soy sauce, ketchup, mustard, vinegar and the salty fish sauce called patis. Terry was quirky and eccentric, she could be very quiet, proper and reserved one minute and the next she would cuss like a sailor; I learned some new words from her. Leigh was loud and boisterous with a sharp tongue and burning wit. Then there was Matthew.

Matthew was a little weird and he made people uncomfortable. He wasn't ugly, he wasn't dumb, he made OK grades, it was just that when he opened his mouth the words came out wrong. When he spoke this goofy smile played about his lips and this didn't help things either. He would hang a sock or tie out his window. Norman asked him why and he said that all the windows looked the same and he wanted to know which room was his when he flew back to the dorm at night. Sometimes he would get shoved or punched, sometimes someone would stop the bullies, sometimes not. He had this piercing stare that was magnified by his thick glasses, sometimes when you found him staring at you it felt like he was reading your thoughts. This seemed to bother the girls quite a bit. Like most loners he was observant, cataloging the words and actions of those around him, storing it up in some vast database. I think he was lonely and like anyone else, he wanted to be liked, he wanted to have friends. So, he tried too hard and the harder he tried the stranger he seemed, the more he was ostracized. Mrs Pettitt tried to get the guys to include him, but because he was different he scared people. I was a bit of a loner too, spending my free time in the library reading while the other boys were down at the mini court playing basketball. I could feel the pain he felt at being left out and sometimes when we in the sala watching TV he would sit next to me because I was the only one who would let him. He was polite and solicitous of other people's feelings; he had a funny sense of humor, but still I never really knew him. Mathew had a favorite expression "Buck Up", which he proffered whenever anyone was down. He never said what he felt, rarely spoke of what he was thinking. The way he was treated made me begin to review my own actions and inaction, not just with him but with everyone.

I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, feeling guilty about teasing my roommate for washing his bar of soap, pondering the injustice of the world when I happened to look at myself in the mirror. And it struck me like thunderclap, now all the innuendos and slights, the subtle slurs became clear. I did not fit into the cookie cutter mold, I was not up to the common standard. What I saw in the mirror shook me to my core, I was seeing myself for the first time: a skinny kid with dark brown eyes and jet black hair. Now I comprehended the words "you ugly, stupid dirty little Flip" and how it applied to me. Now I knew why some girls wouldn't consider me as suitable; and all this time I thought we were the same. Sure, I knew that some people had blond hair and some people had black hair, but I thought that was just part of the variety of nature. I didn't realize that distinctions were being made, you were constantly rated: your weight, the straightness of your teeth, shape of your nose, color of your hair, shade of your skin, cut of your clothes or the accent of your voice. It never occurred to me before, I thought I was just like everyone else. The box was opened; I wanted to go back to being naive again.

Because we were always looking for things to do, a bunch of us boarders signed up for The Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) workshops. They sent up some instructors from Manila to do classes at Brent. These workshops were to teach acting techniques and we did stuff like learning to project our voices, enunciation and pretending we were inanimate objects like trees or chairs, or animals like cats or dogs. I am not sure if we actually learned anything that stuck with us, but we had fun. It was a break in the routine, we could be out of the dorm at night. Jaime and I bummed cigarettes off the instructor:"Mr Slim Menthol 100s" and tried to act cool, we thought we were pretty hip.

One evening we gathered in Binstead Hall to do some "past life" exercises; the idea being that an actor can use those experiences to help them flesh out a role. It was a simple drill, where we sat in a semi circle around one individual who held a flashlight and shone it up to their face. We each took turns sitting there in the dark with a flashlight shining up at our faces, trying to imagine what we were in a past life. Then each member of the group would take turns saying what they saw and lastly the person who had the flashlight would tell what he imagined. In the 1973 post Rosemary's Baby era there were some in the group who were very uncomfortable with this Ouija Board like activity. Some were extremely nervous at sitting in the dark calling up past lives. But at first it was pretty boring and uneventful. Then it was Matthew's turn and after several minutes as he sat there I saw his thick glasses fade away, his hair was streaked with gray, his t-shirt turned into a collared shirt and heavy cape. It kind of looked like he had fangs. I guess someone else saw it too, because one of the girls shrieked making everyone jump, then we all started nervously laughing and talking and the facilitator turned on the lights.
"I was a vampire" Matthew blurted out of turn. I was a little uncomfortable because I had seen something like that too. Maybe it was the power of suggestion because some of the others said "I thought that too!" The facilitator tried to get things back on track, getting us to tell what we saw, but Matthew interrupted again to say "I killed her", pointing at one of the girls in the class. She was visibly upset and refused to stay for the rest of the session. The incident was reported to the Headmaster, decisions were made, phone calls placed.

Well, that was it. In this day and age of "zero tolerance" it would come as no surprise, but back then it was a shocker. Within a few days Matthew was taken out of school and sent for psychiatric evaluation. He never came back.

A month or so later found us nervously climbing the stairs to the Faculty Lounge in Ogilby Hall. Matthew's mother had come to Brent to speak to some of the upper school students and boarders at an assembly. None of us knew what to expect. One of the students in front of me said "this is so sad". I blurted out "Buck Up!" which caused her to laugh, releasing the tension. I remember thinking how brave Matthew's mother was to come before us and talk about her son. The headmaster's wife stood next to her and gently held her arm as Matthew's mother spoke with a quaver in her voice. Gently and clearly she told us about his condition, of the happy little boy she had raised, of the young man he now was. She told us "I know some of you are hurt and angry about him being taken out of school. I want you to know that he truly needed help and getting this help will make him better. I am hopeful that one day I will have my son back" Then she smiled through tears as she read a note that Matthew written telling us "to be happy for him" and "not to worry and buck up"; about his "new friends in the loony bin". It was a good letter, funny and self deprecating. But I couldn't help thinking that just because he really did need psychiatric help that didn't absolve us from the way we treated him. He was a better person than the rest of us. His letter made me think of a book I had read "Flowers for Algernon"; maybe Matthew had read it too. Here it is, an excerpt from the book by Daniel Keyes:

"If you ever reed this Miss Kinnian dont
be sorry for me Im glad I got a chanse
to be smart becaus I lerned a lot of
things that I never even new were in
this world and Im grateful that I saw
it all for a little bit. I dont no what
I did wrong maybe its becaus I dint
try hard enuff. I remember I dids
something but I dont remember what. 
Good-by Miss Kinnian and Dr Strauss
and evreybody. And P.S.please
tell Dr Nemur not to be such a
grouch when pepul laff at him and he
would have more frends. Its easy to
make frends if you let pepul
laff at you. Im going to have lots
of frends where I go."

Part 26: A Christmas Carol

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try
to keep it all the year."

~ Charles Dickens


"Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought,
doesn't come from a store"
~ Dr Seuss

The rest of the school year went quickly, final exams, the candlelight service at St Nicholas Chapel and then before I knew it Christmas vacation had arrived.

I wouldn't be flying down to Tacloban this year, the family would be trespassing in my world for the holidays, we would be celebrating Christmas in Baguio and then my parents were attending an annual missionary conference.

So the day after school let out for the holidays I reluctantly took a taxi over to the guest cottages on the compound maintained by our Mission Board. Yellowing cabins with faded green trim, surrounded by pine trees; it looked just like Brent. It had been several years since I had been there last and I was happy to see it still was the same. I wasn't sure which one we were staying in but I just headed in the direction of the ruckus made by 2 boys being tortured by a third. Our reputation preceded us; the caretakers had wisely isolated us as far from the rest of the guests as possible. Our cabin was filled with all the old familiar homey smells. Mom and Dad were out visiting some other missionaries, but Auring was there, busy in the kitchen making up some of my favorite dishes. She gave me a hug and told me to put my things away. My brothers stopped fighting and huddled together, saucer eyed, staring at me like I was some alien from Mars. I gave them the evil eye and wrinkled my nose as if I had just stepped in something nasty. I put my bag in my room and told them "touch my stuff and you die" before heading out the door to look around. My first stop was to look under the cabins to see if the roads I had carved years before were still there (they were!). Then after inspecting several of my favorite Matchbox play sites I went over to the camp Library. Except once or twice with my mother, all the years we had come here I never saw anyone else in there but me. I always thought of it as my own personal space. I went across the little bridge, in silence I opened the door to the empty sanctuary and breathed in the aroma of old books; I was 7 years old again. The room called out to me"Well, there you are. We have been wondering where you have been"
Here was the little reading areas, there were the tables for writing letters, here a table for playing games. There on the shelves were the worn and tattered board games. There were the novels, here were the mysteries, there was the children's section.Hello, Old Friends.

My heart beating fast I went to the shelves, touching a spine here, pulling out a title there. Here were The Happy Hollisters waiting for me to help them solve a mystery, there was Nancy Drew about to discover The Secret in the Old Clock. I pulled a few favorites and curled up on the couch to read. The hours flew by and all too soon one of the little scabs came to tell me supper was ready.



As usual my parents had put off Christmas shopping till the last minute. One day it struck them that they couldn't put it off any longer and went shopping. Fortunately Baguio had a lot of stores and a large American community which insured that there would be a good selection. I gritted my teeth and hoped for the best. Maybe they would just give me cash this year. Dad came back with a bunch of sacks and a Christmas tree. Mom came in with a few more sacks and began decorating the tree. It was beginning to look like Christmas, maybe there was hope yet.

On Christmas Eve we went to the UCCP church in town. The air was cold and crisp and the scent of burning pine filled the air, Baguio was magical at Christmas time. The service was solemn, the hymns joyful. Arriving back at the camp there were Christmas Carolers going from cabin to cabin singing. When they got to ours and finished their repertoire, in return Dad did his knick-knack, paddy whack dance, patting each of his pockets in turn, searching for that ever elusive wallet he always managed to have left somewhere else, but Mom opened her pocket book and gave them some money.

Thank you! Merry Christmas! Malipayong Pasko!

We had a nice supper with some of the other missionaries staying at the camp, sang carols and went to bed late.

Christmas morning arrived with the sound of the metal grate scraping as my Dad lit the kerosene heater and my youngest brothers crying in the living room. I heard Dad yell "Quit bullying your brothers!" followed by the hollow plunk of someone getting knocked on the head. Now the older one joined the two youngest in crying.Ho Ho Ho I whispered and pulled the blankets back over my head but I was wide awake now. Auring already had breakfast cooking; I could smell the bacon and the pancakes. So I got up, sipped a cup of hot tea and watched the little vermin rampaging through the gifts. They all seemed to have made out well, Dad even did fairly well by Mom. I was avoiding opening my gifts, not wanting to be disappointed. Auring handed me a package from her that contained two nice shirts, then Mom gave me a shoebox that had 6 paperbacks in it. That was it. I had been prepared for this and so busied myself with one of the books while the rest of the family continued to open presents. Auring clucked her tongue and mumbled "disgracia" and left the room. A little while later she came back and pushed some folded up bills into my hand. I protested, but she pulled my ear with one hand and wagged her finger at me with the other. Then she hugged me tight and I whispered thank you.

My parents were attending the Baguio Religious Acculturation Conference, usually held the last week of December, where missionaries gathered for lectures and discussions on acculturation in the Philippines. Held at different venues each year the conference was hosted by one of the Catholic colleges and universities in Baguio. We had been in Baguio at these conferences in the past and they were always interesting and exciting. When I was younger I would stand outside the hall and listen to their debates. Most of the attendees were missionaries and religious educators, but there were a few anthropologists attending as well. At times the debates would grow passionate, standing, gesturing, waving their arms, clapping. One of the regulars was not here this year, Dr.William Henry Scott from Sagada was being held in prison on charges of being a "subversive" by the Marcos regime. His books on the natives of the mountain provinces were well known. Most of the old timers were there: Peter Gowing, Robert Fox, Edward Dozier, Richard and Eunice Poethig and the Grants to name just a few.

There were a lot of Americans from different denominations in Baguio that year attending the same conference. Most of the missionaries who had kids brought them with them, so there were a lot of kids around the camp. Among them were two cute girls my age who went to the International School in Manila. Their parents were in the same mission as mine and I vaguely recalled them from years past. One was a blond and the other was a brunette, they looked a lot better than I remembered. Even better was that they seemed to like me. The two of them eyeballed each other and began verbally circling. All of this was done very subtly and with great politeness and decorum. I watched in fascination, never having seen anything like this or ever been the object of dispute.

After some intense negotiations they sorted out who was going to take possession of me and I went on a walk with my "holiday romance". We were passing one of the cottages trying to find a place to be alone when I heard someone call my name. Looking up I saw Dr Grant calling to me from the window. "You boys come up for some cookies, I just baked them."
Both the Grants had PhD's and were missionaries that had lived near us in Fil-Am Village when we lived in Quezon City. They were like grandparents to us, and always had something good to eat. I introduced my new girlfriend to her and she exclaimed "Sydney! Like the city in Australia! You don't hear that one very often. Do you go by Syd?"
I tried to explain, repeatedly, carefully enunciating her name, but to no avail. Sydney it was. "Syd" laughed and winked at me. After we finished our cookies and drinks she hustled us out the door and we continued on our way. With the conference going on the camp was full, and it seemed that there was no place where we could be alone. Kids running around and toddlers with their yayas were everywhere. Finally we found a spot by sliding down the hill and there perched above Bokawkan Road, overlooking the valley and pine forested hills beyond, we could neither be seen from the road below or the path above. Now and then we would hear people passing above us, once I heard my Dad and brothers walking by. It was warm in the sun and we lay in the tall grass, her head on my shoulder, laughing, talking and kissing. Syd must have been concerned that I might be harboring some doubts as to her gender, because at one point she abruptly produced two volumes of evidence for me to peruse. Boy, these IS girls sure were progressive.



After two weeks in Baguio Mom and Dad were relaxed and content. This whole conference was an excuse to have some down time and they needed it. True workaholics they seldom took vacations. I suddenly realized that all the times we had come to Baguio in the past were when they attended these meetings. With just a few days of vacation left Dad now was spending his time catching up on all the periodicals he had been missing out on back in Leyte. Auring watched the kids when they played around camp and even they had quit fighting and were getting along. Mom realized the disparity in the gift department or maybe Auring said something, but she decided to take me shopping.Overriding Dad's half-hearted protests, she decided that Yes I did in fact need sweaters and a jacket just like they did.

"I walked a mile and back to school in the snow with just a burlap sack for a coat!"
Mom got me some warmer clothing and we found a trunk to store my stuff in so I wouldn't have to bring everything home for the summer. We went shopping at Easter School where she bought gifts to send to the relatives, then on to shops on upper Session Road: Old Pagoda, The Pied Piper and down at the bottom of the hill, the old Stone Market where Mom exclaimed at all the black market items available. She had been missing American candy bars and couldn't help herself and bought a dozen bars. She also bought some black market American canned foods, shampoo and a bottle of English Leather cologne for me.

We went to the movies and had ice cream at the the Magnolia shop afterwards. We went to eat pizza at a restaurant called Mario's at the top of Session Road. She was happy and light hearted, the weather was sunny and cool and she laughed a lot.It was like we had been transported back in time. At night it got quite cold and Dad would light the kerosene heater and we would eat popcorn and play Flinch or Monopoly. The scent of the pine trees, the odors of burning kerosene and popcorn all bring to mind Christmas in Baguio. For a short while we were a family again, it was a good time, a quiet time before the storm. I think it was the last happy days our family spent together, before the rage, before the discontent, before the cancer, before the death, before the disillusionment.