back to DWA
After New Year,I went back to DWA to continue my teaching. I frequented the library. I borrowed lots of books ( sometimes 20 at a time, but I never found time to read them )..The pretty librarian asked me, as she was checking out the books, "Are you really reading all of these?" I was about to give her a smart-ass answer but , I just smiled and said.."I love books.." The actual meaning is : "I love books the same way I love you.." But I can never tell this to her in person..Not in the library anyway..
Then one day, something happened that improved my chances of winning from 1 in 1 million to a much better figure..
The school is about to celebrate a convocation. One of the numbers is a live band number by Ricky Perez and his group..They have all the electronic instruments: electric guitar, bass, drums amps and a keyboard. One day the whole ensemble of instruments were brought to school and were deposited in a room on the first floor, the one beside the ramp on the left side. At lunch time, I saw the electronic keyboard. My fingers itched so I went inside, plugged it to an AC line together with its amp..I adjusted the volume not so loud as to rattle all the windows, but loud enough so Miss Hufana can hear it..When I started playing, my mind and soul got into my music, thus I did not notice that she stopped by the window, looked inside and watched me for a few minutes before she went up to the library..She said to her co teachers she did not know I can play the keyboard very well. Some members of the opposite sex would fall for a person with talents..One of the selections I played was TRIESTEZAS DEL ALMA, popular waltz during the 60s..It meant sorrows of the soul..Yeah, I was expressing the sorrows of my soul in music..
Well, afterwards her attitude towards me was still casual. My serenade did not make any big dent in her protective armor, but at least she already noticed me.
good-bye DWA
But at the beginning of the next school year, I had a disagreement with one of the German priests of DWA. I quit without tendering a 2-week notice. My subjects were given to other faculty members until they could find a replacement. Before I left, I said goodbye to Nitz but I vowed to her I would come back just to see her..even if that priest was still around. So all of a sudden, I became again a liability in our household. No job, no life, but no problem! As long as Mama is around! Although it was more than once that she urged me to return to my old job. But she found out that talking to me was like talking to a brick wall.
One time some faculty members of DWA dropped by the house. They were in Asingan for some school business.."Why dont you come back?" they said.."Fr. _______ is not really that bad. He has a good side you never saw.." What good side, all I could see then was his bad one..Me going back to DWA?..Fat chance, I said to myself..My position was still vacant at that time. But not for long. Pretty soon they found Miss Edith Moreno from Urdaneta to take my place.
My parents found me another teaching job, in Dasol, Pangasinan. The Director of the Catholic school there was a former assistant Parish Priest of Asingan, the late Fr. Roque Velasquez from Mangaldan.
Fr. V was a good friend of mine and of our family too.He was a boyish looking chap, easy with his smiles and his jokes. He's the kind of guy you would love to have as a drinking buddy..Asingan was his first assignment as a secular priest ( he was a former member of the religious order of the Benedectines in San Beda ).
One of the stories I remember about Fr. V is this : One afternoon he saw a man entering the church which was accidentally opened at that time...He looked suspicious. It did not look like he was going in to pray the rosary. He got the word THIEF! written all over his backside..Fr. V took his hand gun from his room and waited at the window of the convento. Then the man came out, carrying something valuable. Father shouted.."Stop there! I have a gun!" The man stopped..What must he do next?..Fr. V's mind began racing in circles..Then he said.."Do not move, I am coming down.." He left the window and started to ran down as fast as the wind..As Father emerged from the convent doorinto the open, gun in hand, he looked around: the son-of-a-bitch was gone! Of course!! He was not expecting Fr. V to congratulate him for a job well done! Soon Father was the topic of jokes like: Father can never be a 007, he allows the bad guy to run away!..
a week-end in Dasol
When he left Asingan, I guess they must have assigned him to Dasol. He paid us a visit one day years later and found out I was out of work. He told my mom to send me for a holiday in Dasol and the next day, my Mom packed my bags and gave me some bus money. And off I went bound for Dasol!
Upon arriving there after almost half-a-day in a bus, I found out my "holiday" involved teaching some high school subjects in the Parochial school ran by Fr. V. I stayed for half a week. After my last subject that Friday, I got so homesick and so I took off after promising Fr. V I would return.. Dasol is more quiet and laid back than Asingan. It was more beautiful though. The slopping hills gave it a rugged look and the beach is close at hand. However, it is VERY FAR from my hometown and my friends ( including Miss Hufana) that never had I felt so lonely and miserable.
When I returned to Asingan, I felt like a fish back into the water..I went back to my routine, hanging out with Belo and Flor; dreaming of projects that could make us millionaires someday. We discussed them enthusiastically between drinks of BASI a kind of wine fermented from sugar cane..We did not know what was talking during these think-tank sessions; the basi or our screwed-up brains. Becoming a millionaire while staying in Asingan? You have more chances of being hit by a lightning while hiding under your bed than by becoming a zillionaire in Asingan. But I had to admit it, at that time, it felt so good to become a bum again!
One night in January 1971, there was a party at the residence of Atty. Ambrosio Divina. His daughter was having a birthday shindig and all the DWA faculty members were invited. It was an evening lawn party. Yep, all of my ex-fellow teachers were there, including the willowy Miss Hufana. I just hung out close to the fence without them seeing me at first..Then I decided to come out in the open, walk in and greeted the celebrant. Anyway Atty Jun Divina was a good friend of my brother and a friend of our family.I just waved hello-goodbye to the faculty and other people there, then I left. Didn't stay there very long.
the trip that changed my life
It took me another month before I gathered my courage to visit her again inDWA.."What the heck would I lose anyway," I said to myself.I felt I have already lost just everything. A mysterious urge made me dress up, take an Urdaneta bound jeep and drop by the road leading to the DWA. As I slowly walked that road I felt like St. George walking towards the Dragon's lair. St. George sans any lance or armor..But I was able to overcome my fears: Sometimes yourself is your worst enemy.Well, I was able to drag my ass into DWA, even though I know Father Dragon was there, ready to have me for supper! So I found myself in the library again, just like in the good old days..
"Hello.." Miss Hufana said.."What are you doing here?"
"I wanna see you again.."I boldly answered. Seeing her again after so many months, is..its hard to describe the feeling so I just say undescribable....I was trespassing, I know. Fr. _______, upon hearing I barged into the school said to one of the faculty "What's that guy doing here?" .. Was it wrong for an ex-teacher to visit his old school?
That was not the last time I visited her..I came frequently having learned she just broke up with her boy friend in Canada. I felt alive again. Yessss!
One of the faculty members was a very good friend of mine. He is from Asingan too. He laid some groundwork for me, putting in some good words for my credit to Miss Hufana. Then I started writing her love letters..After a few weeks, she accepted me..But she asked me not to come to the school though. She told me just to visit her in the teacher's boarding house which was Sonny Sison's residence. I guess the priest who forced me to quit has still a sharp ax to grind, and she was afraid he might bury it in my back.
He could not forgive me for my article which came out in a weekly Urdaneta newspaper. In there, I painted an unfavourable portrait of him. That issue of the paper sold like hot cakes that day and some students placed copies in the library. He disposed of them, but another more copies would take there place .He complained to Miguelita about the papers but she said.." I can not control what the students do. Many of the students did not really like his attitude. This newspaper incident happened a few weeks BEFORE I went back to DWA for the first time since I resigned...
It was March 2 when I mailed her my first love letter..March 2, the Ides of March which proved fatal to Julius Ceasar. But for me, it was anything but...
And four months lateron July 4, we got married at the Sta. Maria de Pila church by our school chaplain in Adamson University where I got my AB Journalism degree. Some of my college classmates came to sing during the wedding mass. On July 6, after spending just one day in Asingan, both of us rode in a bus to start a long trip to Laguna. It was also the start of our colorful, exciting journey on the road named Marriage. A few weeks before, I was accepted for an editorial position in the University of the Philippines College of Forestry, College, Laguna. Nitz my brand new bride and I were to spend a few days honeymoon in Pila, Laguna. Then from Pila, she would go back to Urdaneta to continue teaching at the DWA and I would start working for the UPCF. ---#
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