musings of two men

I really miss the old house my father made back in the province. A wooden and bamboo house, wooden all except for the balcon which was shiny bamboo. It was stilted up about 3 feet high.

The space resulting below was used for keeping the goats at night; it was a one bedroom house. There was a mattress in the bedroom, and a place next to it where we would lay the banig.

The kitchen was the main part; the sala was nothing more than a thouroughfare from the front door to the kitchen; The sink goes all the way outside into a dug hole which we covered with rusty GI sheet. It was a deep hole, and somtimes our yellow ducklings would fall there.

There were papaya trees, guavas, duhat, banana and almost all the climbing vegetables;  I sometimes wonder why the soil that used to grow those vegetables is now sandy; it was black and rich when I was young. And now I dont see anymore frogs, nor snails. They were abundant before.

And it had the aura of a barrio, the other lots and lands as well. now it looks like a city street. Many people with their shirts out tambay in corners. What used to be a calm, silent siesta hour, when you could hear the winds rustling the coconut trees and the camachile and mangoes, now you can hear kids and motors 24/7.

So I got a land farther and farther from the poblacion; but i dont want to sell the land where I spent my childhood. But there might be hope. They are building the public market away from the poblacion; for sure all the businesses would follow, and this busy place would die down, initially it would look forlorn,  but slowly it will go back to what it was once-a residential, relaxing and quiet part of town.--Longwaybye

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Progress in the Philippines is irreversible.  Our town was so quiet and peaceful before the tricycle became the King of the Road.  Now they would prowl around making money all night when people are trying to catch sleep for the next day's events.

I would come home now and I do not see my old friends anymore. Just one or two of them and so we would stroll somewhere peaceful ( like the back wall of a cemetery ) and there try to piece together some vignettes of the past. Or try to figure out what are the possible scenarios if at one point, I took a left turn instead of a right when I was at a life's crossing...

Things seem to be okay..6 decades and I am still here! I can still jog. Never had any flu shots for somany years,never had the flu even if I always ride in an airtight bus sharing the same air for an hour with people who are exhaling out God knows what..But then I am taking Red Korean Ginseng twice everyday and Echinacea once a day, 365 days a year..Whether that's the reason for my health, I do not know. But I try to live my day as full as possible thinking that tommorow may never come!!!--vic