Part 25: The Blue Lagoon

"I see... as a young baby sees, and there are things are before me that I do not comprehend. It is not through my bodily eyes that this sensation comes, but through some window of the mind, from before which a curtain has been drawn."

~ Henry De Vere Stacpoole


"Nature has left this tincture in the blood, That all men would be tyrants if they could"
~ Daniel Defoe

Boarder boredom during those first weeks of Martial Law also led to increased activity in the hazing department. My roommate Steve was repeatedly "captured" and tortured. He was now the cleanest kid in the dorm, having cold showers two or three times a day. But all the repeated washings did not seem to be making a dent in the Vaseline they had rubbed in his hair. His misery and frustration with one of his tormentors in particular came to a head one weekend late in October. One afternoon while munching on Nabisco Fig Newtons and alternating between rage and despair he muttered "I'd like to see the f@#*!er eat s*#t".

Steve was normally such a mild mannered kind of guy, so all these four letter words coming out of his mouth told me how upset he really was. He sat there in gloomy silence for awhile and then he got so agitated you could see the little light bulbs lighting and exploding in his head. I thought he was having a seizure. He ran out of the room and came back a few minutes later with a rolled up section of smelly newspaper. One of the teachers in our dorm had a pet bird and he had taken the paper that lined the cage out of the trash. Shaking and muttering to himself like a mad scientist he took his fingernail file and partially dug out the filling of a Fig Newton, then began packing it with the scrapings from the newspaper, supplementing it with droppings from his pet mouse that he had for a science project. Then he refilled the Fig Newton with the filling he had removed, carefully shaping and scraping the end to make it look just like the others. He triumphantly held up his creation with a look of glee, then the smile faded. "I'll never be able to pull it off, he'll know I'm up to something"

I had been lying on my bed, watching him in horrid fascination as he worked. I felt bad for him as I now realized that it would all be for naught and he would continue to suffer. Now was the time to make up for my Slave Day betrayal. Something inside me snapped and I sat up, swung my legs over the bed and leaped to the floor.
I'll do it

I took the Fig Newton package and removing all of them, replacing the "doctored" fig bar on the bottom. Then I took three normal ones and placed them on the top, walking out the door holding a fourth in my hand. As I climbed the stairs I could hear Norman and Angel up in the lobby talking with my roommates nemesis and I joined them, slowing chewing as I casually examined the sign out sheet. I finished the one in my hand and pulled out another and bit into it. Now there were only two "safe" ones left. I proffered the package to Norman and he took one, then held out the package to Angel who took another. Steve in the meantime had come up the stairs and was standing on the second floor landing talking to Mrs Pettitt, but really watching the events unfold below and practically dancing with excitement. I finished mine off, started to pull the last one out of the package, stopped, looked at the hapless victim and said "want the last one?" .
Sure, I love Fig Newtons! and he popped the whole thing in his mouth, chewed it up and swallowed. Steve couldn't stand it any longer and let out ear splitting screech and chanted "you ate bird s#@t!" over and over, then burst into hysterical laughter.
What! the Villain roared, lunging forward, first trying to grab me, then my roommate, but Norman blocked his path to me and Angel blocked his path up the stairs to Steve. They were both laughing as they grabbed him by the arms and hustled him off. They appreciated a good joke and kind of looked out for Steve from then on.

The first week of November Mr. Rudy Asiatico took his 8th and 9th grade science classes on the annual field trip to a place called 100 Islands. We would spend 3 days there collecting specimens for our science classes.

We loaded up the bus early one Thursday morning and made the drive down the mountain to the Lingayen Gulf. We got to a small town later that day and transferred our belongings to several pump boats along with food and water, a block of ice, 6 cases of soft drinks and 4 cases of San Miguel Beer. Lench Villaluna nudged Erik Smith and whispered something. They both laughed and said something to Elmer Strasser and Mark Becker. Mr Asiatico overseeing the loading and looked over at them.
"I'll be counting those as I drink them boys, so don't get any ideas"

We were in high spirits as we made our way across the gulf. The skies were clear, there was a cool breeze and the waters crystal clear. The island we were going to was out of sight from the main land and after we unloaded the boats they left us, headed back to town. One of the girls asked "How will they know to come back and get us?" Another said a panicked tone "What if they forget?" Mr Asiatico, ever the joker said "I hope they remember it was this Sunday and not next Sunday, I can't remember now what I told them". I got a tingly sensation in my stomach as I watched the boats sail away. It gave me the feeling of being marooned or shipwrecked like Robinson Crusoe.

We quickly set up camp, Mr Asiatico organizing us in to teams each with specific duties. Some of us set up the kitchen area, some the sleeping area, while others gathered firewood. The chaperones and the girls set up their sleeping area in the pavilion along with the food supplies. The boys decided we would sleep at the end of the concrete jetty that was well away from the pavilion. We Scouts had done this kind of thing before and we got through it fast so we could go swimming. The water felt great and it seemed like in no time at all Mr Asiatico was yelling for us to come in to eat. The fare was better than I expected and we ate with gusto. After supper we took our plates and utensils down to the water to rinse and scour them with sand: fresh water was at a premium out here.

Nighttime on a little island in the ocean is a study of contrasts. There was no electricity on our little island, the only light was a couple of Coleman lanterns and the drift wood fires we started. Once those were out you were aware of how dark it was away from a city; and yet there was so much light too. The ocean reflected the light of the moon and the stars, the waves crashing on the shore gave off phosphorescent light. You were aware of how quiet it was without the sounds of traffic and other city noises and yet there was the continuous rumble of the surf. The moon came up that night an eerie blue and it seemed to fill the horizon as it rose up out of the ocean.

We sat around the camp fire, talking and singing songs. Mr Asiatico told his oft repeated story of the tongue severed by a Japanese soldier that took on a life of it's own, crawling through the jungles looking for victims to strangle in it's slimy embrace.
"In fact, it was somewhere very near to here where the atrocity occurred!"

Out there in darkness the only sounds were the hiss of the waves on the shoreline and the crackle of the fire.
"Wait. What was that? Did you hear something?"

Then he poked the unsuspecting Ms Castro and she screamed, prompting unsolicited screams from the girls and some of the boys. Most of us Scouts had heard this story a dozen times or more but he was a natural story teller and embellished the tale to fit the location. I have to say I always jumped even though I knew what was coming.

The next morning we were up with the sun, ready to get started. After breakfast and cleanup was over, we went over our worksheets and gathered up our specimen jars and little nets. We spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon collecting samples, everything from shell fish to sea cucumbers. By mid afternoon we had most of our worksheets complete and we knew that the rest of the weekend would be ours to enjoy. One of the guys in our group had a huge crush on Ms Castro and would mumble to himself every time she passed by and rush off to jump in the ocean. She did look very fine in her suit and I thought her the most wonderful Algebra teacher ever. She managed to coax an "A" out of me in that class and I think it was solely because she mesmerized me with her gaze.

Most of the guys in the two classes were in Boy Scouts and we all brought our scout packs, canteens and other gear along with some snacks and other goodies. One of the guys brought a portable cassette player and some tapes, I brought vienna sausages, cheese in a can and crackers. Lench, planning ahead, had brought along a carton of cigarettes and a big bottle of gin colloquially known as "Marca Demonio" or "4x4" because of the effects it had on the drinker. Ginebra San Miguel had a label that depicted the archangel Michael slaying a demon.
We passed the bottle of gin taking sips and saying "this stuff is horrible" every time it was our turn for a sip. The stuff tasted like kerosene and burned in my belly long after I quit drinking. I had my first cigarette that night and I never drank a drop of gin again for 35 years. Oddly enough the very next time I had gin it was Ginebra San Miguel.

Late into the night we lay on the jetty, listened to Chicago VII and Graham Nash's Songs for Beginners. The sound of the surf mixed in with the recording of the surf on Chicago's Wishing You Were Here till you couldn't tell where it ended on the recording or when it began. Those two albums are now irrevocably entwined with my life; Chicago's Happy Man, Nash's Simple Man and Wounded Bird are part of my anthem.

The next day was a repeat of the first, we finished off our worksheets by noon, had big lunch and then napped in the shade. Later that afternoon we swam out to a little dot of an island, the waves were slowly eroding the base of the island away.

That night we grilled hamburgers and drank the last of the soft drinks. Mr Asiatico was busy trying to finish off his beer but apparently lost count because later that night Eric produced 6 cold bottles of San Miguel he had pilfered for us to share. Much better than the gin that no one wanted to finish. I don't know if Lench smuggled that bottle back to Baguio, or if it was left buried in the sand waiting for some lucky fisherman.



The next morning after breakfast we packed up our gear and waited for the boats to pick us up. The appointed hour came and went and my classmate who had been so worried about this very thing started sobbing. Marooned! But then after an hour or so here came the boats. They had a little engine trouble and were delayed getting to us.

We had just spent 3 days on the beach and no one had sun block in those days, so by the time I got back to the dorm I was bright red. I hurt all over and even my scalp was sunburned. Mrs Pettitt took one look at me and pulled out a jar of Noxzema and began slathering it all over my face, shoulders and back. The cool ointment felt so good on my hot skin. A week later I started peeling and I was all blotchy looking. I was sitting on the steps one day and this girl started peeling the dead skin off me it in great big patches. Kind of weird, but I was enjoying the attention!

Part 24: Animal Farm

"No one can look back on his schooldays and say
with truth that they were altogether unhappy"
~ George Orwell


"All animals are equal,
but some animals are more equal than others"

~ George Orwell


"On the whole, human beings want to be good,
but not too good, and not quite all the time"
~ George Orwell

With all classes suspended and lots of time on our hands, we boarders soon turned to hi-jinks. The boys dorms began a series of night raids on the girls dorm, Hamilton Hall. Organized by the Seniors and Juniors, the first two were "panty raids", we would sneak over to their dorm, creep up the stairs and then run room to room, grabbing panties from dresser drawers and then race back to our dorms. The older boys would do the raiding while the younger kids created distraction in the hallways. Which really meant that we were being readily sacrificed so the upper classmen could get away with their booty. A few of us younger guys were captured and what do girls do with captured boys? A "make over" of course! We had our hair done, eyes lined, faces powdered and rouged, lip stick, finger nails and toe nails were painted. It wasn't so bad. After they took out their frustrations on us we got pampered, kissed and cuddled! We looked like drag queens and took a lot heat when we got back to the dorm, but as I told Pat Dillon: I happen to like girls in their pajamas hugging me.

The first raid was a great success, carefully planned and executed; the girls had to claim their garments at supper the following night. The second, an impromptu affair, did not go as well. The girls were prepared this time and more of the boys were "captured" and "tortured" by the girls. This time they were not as nice.

Not to be outdone by the boys, the girls launched their own attacks on the senior boys dorm. This escalation lead to an all out attack on the Hamilton Hall; water balloons, toilet paper soaked in water and eggs were our weapons. Silently circling the dorm, at the given signal, we simultaneously launched our projectiles at all open windows. Ah the humanity! The screams, the shrieks and the cursing!

After such a successful attack, our generals decided to follow up with another the very next night. We gathered up our weapons and headed out in the dark through the grass and up the hill to Hamilton Hall. We were half way up the hill when suddenly girls leaped up from where they had been hiding in ambush and began throwing water balloons at us. For a few minutes the air was thick with flying eggs, soggy toilet paper and water balloons. There was lots of screaming and yelling. Some of the water in the balloons smelled like it came out of the bottom of the rain barrels at Hamilton Hall. Some of it smelled much worse. Then all of sudden it stopped. We were out of ammo.

The girls started dragging off some of the guys as prisoners so we grabbed some girls as hostages too. With all the hullabaloo the dorm masters came out, then the assistant headmaster Ed Craig came out. Prisoners were exchanged, and a cease and desist order issued. Mr. Craig and Mr Pettitt gathered us together in the sala and talked to all the boys in the dorm. Things were getting out of hand and people were getting hurt. Some of the staff were concerned at the waste of eggs, our ammo was their food. I felt embarrassed about that. It never crossed my mind how it might look.

Chagrined, a couple of us went and apologized the next day to Domingo and my friends in the kitchen. They listened somberly as I stumbled with the words, my head hung in shame. Then one of the cooks laughed and tousled the hair on my head and another patted me on the back. Freddie nodded his head and said "good boys". They gave us some slices of freshly baked jelly rolls and a cup of tea! All was forgiven, things were back to normal.

During the second week of Martial Law, the Department of Education issued a directive that all schools in the Philippines implement a "work oriented curriculum", wherein one day each week be allotted for civic work. In keeping with this mandate, Brent would designate Friday of each week as "Work Day". However, that first week back we had Thursday and Friday as Work Days; And so we began work on an Animal Farm.

After flag raising we reported to our home room where Mrs. Estascio gave us our class assignment. The Brent campus was always very clean. You never saw trash laying around anywhere, so any cleaning we were going to do would be outside the gate along the fence of the athletic field along Brent Road. Most of us were assigned to the Animal Farm. We would be moving rocks, digging post holes and helping to erect a fence to contain whatever animals we might have. It was good to be doing something again and the day students were glad to be out of their homes finally. Most of the parents had kept their children home and indoors for the first week of Martial Law. Some of them had not seen any schoolmates for two weeks!

The whole school turned out, tasks assigned and divided by grades. Most of the boys were doing the hauling, digging and lifting. There were "bucket brigades" of rock haulers, moving loose stones which were being collected to build an amphitheater and pond. The elementary grades began work on a garden, tilling, spading, pulling weeds and making raised beds. At noon we had lunch on the Neutral, with tables brought out from the dining room set up with platters of sandwiches, potato chips, lemonade and ice tea. After a extra long lunch we went back to moving stones. Time went quickly and the next thing we knew the dismissal bell rang. The next day was a repeat of the first, except that after lunch we were essentially done for the day, and we went about putting away the tools. By two o'clock we were ready for the weekend! By the time the dismissal bell rang most of the boarders were at the gate waiting to sign out. We were heading downtown for the first time in two weeks!

Part 23: The Gulag Archipelago

"I dedicate this
to all those who did not live to tell it.
And may they please forgive me
for not having seen it all
nor remembered it all,
for not having divined all of it. "

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Released in the US in the winter of 1971, but still making the rounds in theaters across the Philippines, Fiddler on the Roof was striking a chord with Filipino audiences. The problems encountered by a Jewish peasant in 1905 Czarist Russia echoed the difficulties facing families in the conservative predominantly Catholic country. The encroachment of communism, the changing mores of a younger generation, resistance to prearranged or sanctioned marriages, longer hair and shorter hemlines, the Pill, alcohol and drugs; these were causing consternation and anger across the country. Demands that the country return to tradition echoed from the podium to the pulpit. One morning in late September the nation found there were other ugly parallels between the film and their lives.

On that morning we awoke a little earlier than usual. In my bed I heard the buzz of activity and assumed it was time to get up. I was surprised when I looked at my watch to find that it was only 5:00 a.m. yet everyone seemed to be up and dressed already. Sticking my head out the door I could see that a lot of the upperclassmen were in the sala staring at the TV although it didn't seem to have anything on. At breakfast you could tell the faculty and staff were nervous; they gathered in groups and whispered to each other. After breakfast some of us milled about the locker room, others at the flag raising area, some gathered at the student lounge. Most of us expected to be going to class although we could see that the gate to the school was shut and none of the day students had arrived yet.

Finally Mr. Craig with his penetrating drill sergeant's voice gave us the word.
"No classes will be held until further notice!"
Some kids gave a cheer.
"All off campus privileges were suspended until further notice!"
Some booing.
"All boarders report to their respective dorms and await further instructions from their dorm masters!"
Some cheering and some booing.

It wasn't till I got back to my dorm and changed that I began to understand what was going on.
In the sala next door we watched an announcement being broadcast about something called Proclamation 1081. President Marcos had declared martial law, claiming that the country was faced with revolution from both the communists on the left and anarchists on the right. Newspapers, television and radio stations that were critical of Marcos had been shut down in the middle of the night. Politicians critical of Marcos as well as common criminals were being rounded up as well. The President told us a national curfew was in effect, but promised a quick restoration of law and order.

Fearing violent student demonstrations, colleges, universities, seminaries and schools across the country had been ordered to close. For the first few days it was fun to be out of school, but soon we realized our entertainment options were limited, most of our time was spent at the gym or the library. During the day we played basketball, volleyball, soccer and football and at night we played cards. We hung out at the canteen, Manong Freddie was busy dispensing chips, soft drinks and hamburgers to bored boarding students. Then Dr. McGee was able to arrange to have some sport films brought over from JHAB; one about Bob Cousy, Bill Russell and the Celtics, the other about Earl "the Pearl" & the Knickerbockers.

Outside our gates in Baguio things seemed quiet. Some school activities were tentatively tested: a carefully watched basketball game between Brent and another school was held towards the end of the first week. Then came the proclamation that all schools would reopen, the first day back to school would be a nationwide work day dedicated to civic duties. Taking his cue from Chairman Mao, Marcos declared it was desirable that all should work the earth. One day a week was to be allotted for public works, gardening, general clean up, usually around the schools campus. It was Bagon Lipunan, a New Society, where everyone would prosper, or so he told us.

This sounded so good on the surface, but what we didn't know yet was that the President had been secretly preparing lists of his critics and the undesirables over the last five years. Just after midnight on the 21st, across the archipelago the Philippine Constabulary or "PC" used these lists to round up tens of thousands of those who opposed the President; a power unto themselves, the PC became as dreaded as the Gestapo. Herded into detention centers, these "dissidents" were ministers, priests, politicians, businessmen, teachers and students. Soon most families had someone being held in places like Camp Crame and Fort Bonifacio. Some were released after a few weeks, others were interned for years; some were never seen again. Lines were drawn along century old family rivalries; people were arrested not only on the basis of organizations they belonged to, more often it was simply the family they belonged to. Owning a weapon was now illegal, people were rushing to hide or destroy them before the PC showed up at their gates. Secretly organizing groups of politicians, generals and businessmen, Marcos used presidential decrees to strategically position them within the economy and began the process of funneling resources to himself and his associates. People were turned out of their homes, farms and businesses; all this served as a catalyst that turned a trickle into a flood, the "brain drain", the great diaspora of Filipinos to every country in the world.

But we didn't know these things yet; at chapel that first Sunday after the declaration we prayed for the country and the people we loved; we pray for them still: May the Lord protect and defend you. May God Bless you. May the Lord fulfill our Sabbath prayer for you.

Part 22: Of Human Bondage

"The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust" ~ W. Somerset Maugham

"Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman around the corner"
~ W. Somerset Maugham

Being in the Philippines I felt isolated from world events. In those days before cable or satellite TV, before the internet, news was slow to reach the more remote areas. On Leyte, there were no TV stations, the mountain range blocked any chance of receiving reception from Manila or Cebu. Dad had a subscription to Time magazine, but it would arrive two or three weeks late (if it arrived at all). We took the Manila papers, but like most kids I seldom ever looked at them. My parents, busy with their work, rarely commented on the world events that were taking place. Unlike our contemporaries back in the States, we never saw the combat in Vietnam playing out on the evening news.

Even life in Baguio seemed far removed from the hustle and bustle of Manila, let alone the world. For a boarding student at Brent the outside world barely existed, we lived in a bubble. Of course we were just kids, more concerned with our social life than anything else. We read of the Watergate break in, Fischer beating Spassky, Spitz winning his seventh gold medal and then the massacre of the athletes in Munich, but these things seemed so far away.


The start of the Brent 1972-73 school year had been delayed almost two weeks due to monsoons, typhoons, landslides and flooding. Students and teachers alike had much difficulty in reaching the mountain city. Baguio's average annual rainfall was 185 inches, but that year 150 inches fell in 25 days between mid-July and mid-August. In the lowlands, tens of thousands had been displaced by the subsequent flooding and the Philippine Army had been mobilized to help with the clean up and "maintain order" as flood waters began to recede. It was a common sight now to see military vehicles coming and going, to see groups of Philippine Constabulary on street corners.

Once school finally got started we had our first school assembly where we met the new headmaster, Dr. Henry McGee. Mr. Craig went over the dress code rules and then the Senior class president announced that in a few weeks new students and Freshmen would be auctioned off at a special assembly for the annual school event, Slave Day. There was much cheering and groaning. I was not concerned about this, I was not going to be affected, but my new roommate was.

I wasn't sure how I felt about him yet, he was a nice enough guy, generally cheerful, fastidiously tidy and relatively quiet. But he was a little high strung and nervous, two qualities that lent itself to getting picked on. And therein lied the problem.

My new found status as "beer mule" granted by Pat Dillon and his cohorts gave me exemption from hazing and afforded some protection from other bullies who still felt compelled to harass me. After a long year of toilet swirleys, pink belly's and cold showers I was enjoying not having to be on guard all the time. My roommate on the other hand not only resisted his tormentors, he tried to retaliate as well. His histrionics made him a target and because we were roommates, I was included as well. I tried to advise him as best I could, warning him to watch out for groups of upper classmen hanging out on our floor, a sure sign of trouble. He did follow some of my instructions and tied a rope to our bedroom window frame to use to sneak in and out of our room without being detected. But more often than not he would forget to be vigilant.

Some days I would enter the dorm and be assaulted by the pungent odor of Tiger Balm and the pitter patter of spoons on skin and there he would be in the narrow hallway, being held down by a group of upperclassmen, his belly turning an angry red. I would delicately step around them and enter my room, the whole time he is screaming "Waldo save me!". I'd pretend I hadn't heard.

Right. Those guys are twice as big as me and there are six of them.

Some nights I would be studying and he would come skidding into the room and lock the door. "You've got to hide me!"
Right on his heels came the pounding on our door. They wanted blood.

Now here was my dilemma, on the one hand he is my roommate, but I was trying to maintain a low profile. There were several problems: first of all bedroom doors are not supposed to be locked and sooner or later a dorm parent would be by to make us unlock it and hand out some form of punishment, secondly not opening the door to the Goon Squad only invites worse misery upon the occupants. I felt bad about it but I didn't see any real options. So I tell him: Quick! Lock yourself in the bathroom! He runs in and shuts the door. I get up and unlock our bedroom door and sit back down at my desk while the Stormtroopers rush in. In short order they have the lock picked, door forced open and I hear the the sound of the shower running and his screams.
"You F*@#ing Bastard!" That was directed at me. I turned back to my homework.
Hmm. I wonder what Mr. Jenista is going to quiz us on tomorrow?

With Slave Day fast approaching my roommate was really panicking. Who was going to buy him and what were they going to do to him? His imagination was in overdrive as he envisioned all the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition being inflicted upon him.
"You've got to buy me!"

This was going to be a problem as I had already been told that the Gestapo intended to buy him. I was sure they would not respond well to someone interfering with their plans.

On the day of Slave Day he gave me some cash and told me it should easily be sufficient to cover his purchase. Choices, choices. I guess I was going to have to buy him and incur Their wrath. That's when the Bullyboys came over to me and a solution presented itself.

"I hear he plans to have someone buy him"
...Yeah. I think I heard that too.
"Do you know how high he will go?"
...uhmm, well... actually I do ...
I doubled the amount my roommate gave me thinking it might scare them off.
"Thanks! It will be worth it!"
uh oh.

So the bidding started, my roommate desperately yelling at me to bid again every time I was outbid. Then when the bid went over the amount he had given me his face went white. I bid a few more times just to make it look good, then with a regretful smile, I shrugged my shoulders.
SOLD!

The look on his face told me that it had just occurred to him that by driving up the bid he had guaranteed that his servitude would be a painful one.
















Spending his day in a bikini, my roommate had choice words for me whenever he caught me grinning at him. In fact it turned out that other than for some minor humiliations I had saved him over a hundred pesos. But I don't think he ever forgave me, not for that and other things that would transpire later in the year.

A few weeks later found us over the excitement of Slave Day and the first dance of the school year; the rhythm of daily school life settled in, then one morning we awoke to find that the Philippines was in the headlines. A new term was being spoken, I had never heard of it before. I had heard of the Marshall Plan but what was this Martial Law?

Part 21: Return of the Native

"Where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts"
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr

"It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time"
~ Barbara Kingsolver

Having delivered me to the city of my school and thus, in his estimation, having reached the limits of his parental duties, my father and I happily parted company. Filiusfamilias had ended. Leaving my dad at the airport to fend for himself, I caught a cab to school.

Driving from Loakan Airport in the rain up to the city, on through the thick fog to Brent, old landmarks began appearing suddenly out of the mist like ghosts; silent sentinels telling me I was almost home. As if the mist was conjuring up a Baguio from the past, I was struck again and again by the richness of the colors and by how timeless the city seemed to be.





By the time my taxi pulled up at the gate the fog had melted and the sun was peeking out.

I hurried up the hill, wondering what kind of trouble I would be in for arriving at school so many days late. I had been anxious about it the whole trip, now that I was here I was beginning to panic.

Friends called out to me as I headed to the office. It was great to be back. For the first time in my life I was returning to the same school! For the very first time I was not the new kid.

I actually knew most of the kids standing in line at the Registrar's desk. When it was my turn I stammered out apologies for my delay. My worries proved to be unfounded, I was told that I was not the only one held up by the weather. Students and a few teachers would continue to straggle in over the next few weeks.

When I found this out two waves of emotion ran over me, the first was relief at not being late for the start of school, the second was more intangible, harder to put my finger on. I felt safe, relaxed, comfortable.

Because I had preregistered at Brent the previous year, registration was simply a matter of picking up my class schedule and in no time at all I was standing outside the bookstore waiting for Manong Jeremy to hand me my schoolbooks. Earth Science with Mr. Asiatico, S.E. Asian History with Mr. Jenista, Algebra with Ms. Castro, English with ...suddenly I felt a slobbery wet finger in my ear. I jumped.
"Waldo!"
It was Pat Dillon. Somewhere along the way that was the nickname he had christened me with. Could have been worse. Joey Butler was called "Buttless". Grinning he grabbed my arm and gave me an "Indian burn". Didn't miss that or the "wet willy" either.
"When you get done come and see my new room. I got some new posters and then we have an errand to run."

After stowing my books in my locker, I hurried down to the dorm with my arms full. This year I had two suitcases to unpack and at the bookstore we were issued a desk lamp and a little electric heater.

Going down the steps by the Chapel I had my first big surprise: there was construction going on across from our dorm. Where there used to be a pretty little cottage, now were concrete forms and scaffolding. Some of the guys from the dorm were poking around, checking out the building.

The second surprise was that the old dorm master quarters on the lower level had been converted to dorm rooms and a dorm sala complete with couches and a TV! I went to my old room and found that I was not assigned there this year. On the door to each room was taped a piece of paper with the names of the occupants on it. I went up and down the hall looking at the doors. My old roommates Jaime Case, Joey Butler and Hata Dimaporo were back but we were not all in the same big room again. It was comforting to see old familiar names next to the new ones. Norman Van Vactor, Angel Medina, Mike Pries, Pat Dillon were back and there were some new kids in our dorm, two 5th graders; Ross Van Vactor, Mark Murray and two 10th graders Robert Curby and Kent Rounds. I was shocked to find I was in a two person room that the previous year had been occupied by a teacher, Ms Licadang. My roommate was Steve Leech, a new kid, who was in my grade. I had been hoping to get Jaime as my roommate again, but I was thrilled to find that we had our own private on suite bathroom. No more waiting your turn, no more running out of hot water! Plus not having to share the toilet with half a dozen other teenagers!

The third surprise was that the Nurse and the clinic had been moved to Weiser Hall above the darkroom/typing classroom and renamed the Infirmary. The old Infirmary building had been renamed Weiser Hall. Everyone still called the two buildings by their original names so I am not sure why they switched them. In Nurse's old rooms were the new dorm parents, Mr. and Mrs. Pettitt. Mr. Pettitt hadn't arrived yet, but Mrs. Pettitt was there to welcome me and seemed really nice. She was the sister of one of our teachers, Mr. Jenista, and they both had attended Brent in the 60's. It seemed kind of strange that a former student was now working here and hard to imagine her as a kid. I wondered what it felt like to be teaching at the same school she used to attend and if she felt weird being a teacher instead of the student.

I quickly unpacked my bags and since I was the first one in the room, I picked the top bunk. Then I went over to the linen storage and checked out some extra blankets and a pillow from Mrs. Tabafunda. After I got my bed made and all my gear stowed I hurried up to Pat's room on the second floor.

Pat's room was where I learned about the amazing world of psychedelic rock. He always had music playing and the wall's of his room were covered with black light posters, including an R- rated parody depicting various Walt Disney characters performing illegal and obscene things. Besides music, Pat's other two obsessions were ping pong and cribbage. He carried a custom ping pong paddle in one of the pockets of the army coat that he always wore. He taught us how to play cribbage and later that year he organized a dorm wide cribbage competition and posted a chart showing who played who and the results of each match.

Pat introduced me to his new roommate Kent Rounds and told me that we were headed to town to get some "groceries". We signed out at our dorm and again at the main gate and then we caught a taxi downtown. Pat directed the taxi to a store on the fringe of the main shopping area and told me to wait. My chest tightened when I saw them come out with two cases of San Miguel beer and a couple of grocery sacks full of snacks. Once back in the taxi he took off his huge green army coat.

"Put this on" he told me and proceeded to fill all the pockets with the beer. By the time we reached the Brent gate all the bottles were out of sight. Pat jumped out, signed us in and had the driver go all the way to the dorm. Once there, he and Kent Rounds went ahead of me to make sure the coast was clear and run interference in case a teacher should be about. It was a long walk from the taxi to Pat's room, trying to keep from tripping on the coat which reached down to my ankles. I staggered up the steps, trying to not let the bottles clink with each step. Somehow I made it without too much incriminating sound.

Back in his room later that night we played cards, listened to music and I nursed a lone San Miguel. Well, I wasn't much of a drinker so I clutched mine, occasionally taking tiny sips of the increasingly warm beer. This was part of my payment. The other part of my payment was chips, crackers and EZ Cheese. I was congratulated and toasted for my endeavors and told to expect future missions. The older guys went through the beer, throwing their empty bottles out the window in to the valley below. As the beer flowed their tongues loosened and they began to tell stories. One of the new guys bragged to us of his exploits at some place called The Red Rooster and his subsequent trips to the doctor afterward to get penicillin shots. It seemed to be a odd, painful way to spend your allowance, and I couldn't help but think of what I would do with the money if I had it. This was a strange new world for me, one that I was not totally comfortable in or terribly sure about; part of me still wanted to be a kid. But I was being included and that was important to me. I wasn't particularly happy at having to be the one smuggling in contraband but I didn't want to jeopardize my new status either. It meant no more hazing for me and that I was "protected" from would be bullies.

And so began my career as a beer mule.

Part 20: Storm Warnings

"And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered"
~ Genesis 7:19

"Long as I remember, the rain been coming down. Clouds of myst'ry pouring confusion on the ground. Good men through the ages, trying to find the sun; And I wonder, still I wonder, who'll stop the rain?"
~ Creedence Clearwater Revival

This is my version of Dad's favorite story, one that he will gladly repeat to anyone who will listen. Of our trip in August of 1972 from Tacloban to Baguio.
In the Philippines there are essentially two seasons. Dry and Wet. Being a tropical country, the Dry season usually was never completely without rain. And in the Wet, well I always thought that the slogan for Morton salt was written by a Filipino because "when it rains, it pours".

"Rainy Season" generally begins in June and runs through December. To put it into perspective, the average annual rainfall for the US is around 30 inches, while in the Philippines the average is around 90 inches. Some years it started earlier, some years it ran well into February. During the bad years travel could be tricky because of the heavy rains and typhoons. Weather in the Philippines was always dramatic. Monsoons, typhoons, floods, landslides, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes. In August of 1968 we survived the "Ruby Towers" earthquake that hit Manila. After 7 years in the Philippines, we thought we had seen the worst of it. We were wrong.
The 1972 season was especially bad, starting a little late, it soon made up for the delay. Torrential downpours, two major back to back typhoons. By mid July, fields had become ponds, then turned into lakes. Crops rotted in the fields. Little creeks became rivers, rivers turned into oceans. There was heavy flooding everywhere and in the mountains with the flooding came landslides. By the beginning of August parts of the lowlands were under 15 to 20 feet of water. For the month of July, Baguio recorded 188 inches of rain. Transportation ground to a halt. Flights out of Tacloban to Manila and from Manila to Baguio were sporadic.
To get me to school on time my parents decided I should leave a week earlier than originally scheduled. In early August, my Dad and I flew from Tacloban to Manila. At the airport we found out that some other stranded Brent students were booked on a flight to San Fernando, La Union, located at the foot of the Cordillera mountain range where they would charter a bus up the mountains to Baguio. Dad made a reservation for me on that flight and we caught a taxi to the Guest House in Malate.
The waters of Metro Manila were fairly deep in some areas, but our Captain navigated his cab well, finding the shallower streets, valiantly plowing through the deep waters when he had to, but finally had to stop a few blocks from the Guest House. Dad carried our luggage on his head and we waded waist and sometimes chest deep through the streets the rest of the way.
Once there I had a few days to kill before the departure, so I went with Dad on his expeditions to get supplies. We waded the streets again and caught a bus to Quiapo, the next day we went to the Mission Headquarters in Quezon City. Everywhere we went the stores were flooded and being cold and wet all day was the norm. The night before my flight to Baguio, I went to bed with a high fever and when I awoke two days later I had missed the flight. The rains turned heavy again. I was stuck.
After I recovered, Dad and I went out to the airport to see what we could find. Mostly we found canceled flights and when the planes did fly they were already fully booked. I got on standby for every flight and we waited. The lowlands were completely flooded now, bridges were out and no buses were traveling to Baguio. We spent our days at the airport, waiting for the rains to let up and the flights to Baguio to resume.

One day at the ticket counter, the agent said he heard there was a pilot of a twin engine Cessna 310 who was going to fly up empty to Baguio to pick up someone who was stranded. Dad got directions and we went over to talk to the pilot. Money exchanged hands and we got on board.
Finally, back to Baguio!

Looking out the window as we flew, it was like the ocean had covered the land below us, with just the tops of trees and houses sticking out of the water. Here and there we could stranded people sitting on the roofs of their homes. It was raining again, but not heavily. As we got closer to the mountains the little plane was buffeted by the wind. The pilot increased power to his engines and we rose up to 5ooo feet. Every so often one of the engines would cough and sputter, but always came back up again and after an hour we saw Loakan Airport. This airport has cliffs on either end of the runway and is noticeably concave. As we began our decent, the left engine sputtered, then stopped running.

“No problem” said the pilot, “we have two”. That is when the other engine quit. The whistling sound of wind passing around the plane filled the cabin. It was very quiet. None of us said anything as we watched the ground rapidly rise up to meet us. We glided down on to the runway and coasted up just short of the terminal.

"Welcome to Baguio!" The pilot held the door as we crawled out, he was all grins as if this happened all the time.
I caught a taxi to school while Dad stayed behind at the airport to figure out how he was going to get back to Manila.

At the ticket counter he was told there were no open flights for weeks; Dad was feeling pretty frustrated. Then Philippine Air Force One and Two landed. On board were President Marcos, reporters, Congressmen and assorted dignitaries who were out assessing the flood damage across the Philippines. One of the persons in the entourage was from Leyte and recognized Dad and went up to see what he was doing here so far from home. When Dad told him of his troubles the man said "I'm with the Congressman! Ride with us!" Dad grabbed his suitcase and pink briefcase and away they went.

First they toured the landslide damage around Baguio and surrounding towns. Then back to the planes where they embarked, crisscrossing Luzon, landing at various airports when they could, getting out to survey the damage, eating and sometimes spending the night. Ten days later they were back in Baguio (where the Cessna pilot was still working on his plane). It took Dad almost two weeks to get back to Tacloban from the day we left.

As I mentioned before, Dad loves to tell this story. I have heard him recount it 15 times in one day. In all the papers and on TV, it was big news in the Philippines at the time. It caused quite a stir, having the President, assorted Congressmen and some white guy inspecting the destruction. If you come across images from that event you might be able to spot Dad, he is the CIA looking guy with the horn rim glasses, crew cut and a pink briefcase.

Part 19: My Summer Vacation (aka Death Race 1972)

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
they have to take you in"
~ Robert Frost


"You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood ... back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame ... back home to places in the country ... back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time"
~ Thomas Wolfe

Well, I had to go "home" sometime and that time had come. I knew that traditionally kids were supposed to hate school and love summer vacation but I couldn't help but feel like I was headed for prison. I knew it wasn't going to be pleasant but I wasn't expecting the onslaught of misery.

Picking me up at the airport my parents were surprised to discover that I had grown 6 inches. I came home clad in capris and a 3/4 length sleeve shirt, which was not a popular style for boys in the 70's. Mom looked at me and said "we're going to have to get some new clothes made for you". Dad exploded.
"We just bought him new clothes last year!"

Here we go

"When I was a kid we didn't get new clothes, they were handed down from my older brother and sister!"

So, did you go to school wearing your sister's old dresses? Or just when you did the chores? (this I mumbled under my breath - I had been training to be a smart ass under the expert tutelage of Pat Dillon - besides I was out of arms reach)

Fortunately Dad didn't hear me. Mom said "He's the oldest. There isn't anyone to give him their hand me downs."
She looked at my feet and said "and he needs some new shoes too."
Gasoline on the fire.
"When I was kid we wore the shoes till the soles fell off! When they got too small we slit holes in the leather so our toes could hang out!"

I sat in silence, flabbergasted. Sometimes there was no worthy response.

Driving towards Tacloban we made a left turn at the Coca-Cola bottling plant as they had neglected to mention that we had moved from the Bethany Hospital compound to a house on the far edge of town. Our new house was at the end of a long dirt road, surrounded by fields and coconut trees. It was very quiet and secluded and I missed the hustle and bustle of Hospital life. Now, when I needed to get away, there was no where to go. No calamansi grove, no comote field. I missed the little hospital canteen, and the bakery across the street from our old home.

Somewhat smaller than our previous home, the new house had two bedrooms upstairs, a large one for my parents and one huge one for Auring, the girl college students and my brothers. There was a landing just at the top of the steps where my parents had their desk and bookshelves. The main floor consisted of the sala, the dining room, the kitchen and oddities of oddities, a stairway leading to a basement. This is where I would be sleeping. But where was my stuff? Like the proverbial kid whose parents rent out his room, any vestiges of my existence had been removed. I had only been gone nine months and there was nothing left. My books and toys were all gone. I felt like a guest in my own home.

That night over supper I eagerly tried to tell the stories of my first year at boarding school: Boy Scouts, plays, classes, friends. Two things became immediately apparent: Dad was completely disinterested, his only comment an occasional snort of disbelief. The second was that everyone else had a hard time relating to my experiences. Gradually I learned not to talk about it. Things were different. They didn't seem like my family anymore. I tried to fit back in to my old life, going to movies with Auring, Tony and the boys, but it didn't feel the same. Was I gone that long? Had I changed so much?

When our new house was first built the basement flooded. The builder pumped out the water and just kept making the walls thicker until they stopped leaking, a full 3 feet thicker. This created a ledge all around the inside of the basement where you could lay or sit and look out the windows. On a hot night this was a cool place to sleep but you had to watch out for the centipedes. There were a lot of centipedes down there, big ones. On my first night there I woke in the middle of the night when something ran up my side. I exploded out of bed and discovered a 9 inch centipede. I now had a nightly ritual: take the bed apart, kill the centipedes that fall to the floor; remove the sheets and pillowcases and shake them out, kill the centipedes that fall to the floor; flip over mattress, kill the centipedes that fall to the floor. Remake bed carefully shaking out the sheets and killing any remaining centipedes. It was hard to get a good nights rest, I felt buggy all the time.

Shortly after I arrived I got my first letters ever and from girls no less! They would have to be answered. This proved difficult for me because erasable ink had not been perfected yet and there was no "backspace" key on my Bic pen. Spell check had to be done manually. Because I wanted the letters to be perfect, I had a trash can full of crumpled drafts.
"Don't you know paper doesn't grow on trees!"

hmm, well if you don't count the trunk and the branches, technically I guess you are right.

Mrs. Hinakay showed up to measure me for shirts and pants and then we went to town to buy fabric. Dad decided that if I had time to get new clothes and to write I must need things to do, even if they really didn't need doing. The first thing he had me do was paint the new bodega that suspiciously looked like it had just been painted. Which it had, by Ric and Eddie only the month before. Then there was the daily chore of gathering the softball sized snails and dropping them in the corn sheller and grinding them up to feed the chickens. Another daily chore was pumping water by hand (even though we had an electric pump just for that purpose) into the water tower. Once that was done there was the job of making of seed sample kits. I really liked making them up and got quite fast at it. I kept making them till I ran out of bags. I think this was a job that Dad thought would keep me busy all summer, as there were hundreds to be made. It involved measuring out the seeds, inserting them into a small plastic bag with a typewritten slip of paper identifying the type of rice, then sealing the bag using a lighted candle. I think he was sorely disappointed when I had them done within a few weeks.

Because I was so industrious and ahead of schedule he decided to make a delivery of seed samples along with some fertilizer to the far southern end of the island. New roads had been built allowing him to drive there in about 8 hours. As I had missed out on the pleasure of his company for the last 9 months Mom decided I should go with him.

We left around 4 a.m. and made a quick stop just outside of town. Just as we were leaving, a chicken flew into our windshield and broke it's wing. Dad gave the owner ten pesos and we proceeded on. An ominous beginning to our trip. We had not gone more than a few miles when a pig ran out in front of us and we hit it too. Dad stopped again to try and find the owner. There was a melee going on around us, people running here and there, one carrying firewood, another carrying a long bamboo pole, others butchering the pig. No payment required, they were going to cook lechon. Dad gave them some money anyway. Back on the road, Dad was getting worried about our time table and glanced at his watch. That is when a dog ran out in front of our Land Cruiser and we hit it. And so it went the rest of the day, as we continued to rack up points and get further behind schedule. We finally reached our destination and delivered the fertilizer and seed sample packets. We had a quick meal and headed for home as Dad had a seminar to give the next day. We were way behind schedule, what with all the stopping to apologize and pay off the various animal owners. So far we had hit 3 chickens, 3 dogs, 3 pigs and a cat. It was getting kind of expensive too. Dad was running out of cash. The sun was beginning to set when up in the distance we see a dog sleeping in the middle of the road. Dad honks the horn and the dog does not stir. Dad honks again and keeps his hand down on the horn. We are coming up fast on the dog and just as he lifts his head to look at us, we ran him over. We don't stop. I slide down in my seat so I can't see out the window. It is very quiet in the jeep for twenty minutes or so.
"Dog must have been sick."

Later that night we hit a couple more dogs and pigs. It is late and Dad is out of cash, so he does not stop or slow down. We reached home around midnight, by which time we had run over a total of 14 animals. So ended Death Race 1972.

One day in early July it started raining and it kind of never quit. Day after day, week after week. This was great because it drastically reduced the number of chores I had to do. We watched the water turn the fields around our home into ponds and then into lakes. The water rose up in the ditches, across the road, slipped under the gate and creeped up towards our front door. Tony, Rick & Eddy filled sandbags and stacked them across the garage floor and around the house. We began hearing reports of typhoons and terrible flooding on the main island Luzon. All roads to Baguio from the south were under water. Dad had some supplies to pick up so he decided to go with me up to Manila a week ahead of my scheduled release! I had served my time and won an unexpected reprieve!

So, armed with clothing that actually fit, I happily set out for Manila and back home.