July 12, 2006

Ulan Story No. 1: Age of Innocence

It’s raining very hard outside, and here I am at work wishing I’m someplace else. Oh well, at least the rain just gave me an idea to write about my unforgettable ulan (rain) stories; I have narrowed them down to three most unforgettable ulan stories:

Ulan Story No. 1: Age of Innocence

It’s really a very harmless story that happened when I was in grade school; it really stuck in my mind for it served to remind me of the good times I had in grade school; when somehow, I still have that child’s sense of wonder and innocence.

I was enrolled in one of the 2 public schools in our town; a really small town with population of under 15,000 (that was during the mid-70’s). I remember I started late in my 4th grade class for reason that I didn’t want to attend the class I was initially assigned. I must have already missed about 2 or 3 days of school when I joined this new class; I was traumatized with my previous year’s stay in the honor section as I really felt I was too bobo for that class, so I was really adamant to be transferred (my mother was a teacher in that school so it was not really that impossible.) Anyway, I felt relieved when on the first day that I joined my 4th grade class everyone were so friendly, especially my new seatmate, Eugene.

I’ve heard stories about him; he was one of the cutest in our batch (come to think of it, even at that young age I already know how to appreciate cute guys, just as I appreciate pretty girls); he was named lover boy, a moniker he earned when he was caught smooching with one of the pretty girls of the batch (yup, even at that young age); but I would say compared to the other supposedly cute members of the batch he was fairly down to earth with no trace of air in the head. And so we begun a beautiful friendship sealed by one experience in the rain.

School during those times was considered an extension of one’s home. As such, we took pride and all share a sense of ownership to our classroom. We clean and polish the floors, our desks; cabinets etc; do the decoration and really take care of all the upkeeps of the room and its surrounding. We all have our assignments and we dutifully followed them.

It was just a month from the start of class when Eugene and I got to be responsible for the class’ drinking water supply. Typical of youngster’s resourcefulness, we found a place to get our water without so much the hassle of queuing with the rest of the school. It was just outside the school premises, through the back; the only hitch was that it was a bit tricky getting there; we have to carefully tread a grassy, steep incline that drops to a small creek, then jump from one boulder to another in order to cross and then climb a less steep but bushy incline into the other side where there's a big water faucet located just a short distance from the town’s main water tank. And so that morning that we were to fetch water we decided to still use that track despite knowing that it would be pretty slippery as it has been continuously drizzling. Lugging 2-3 water jugs each in our arms we carefully negotiated the slippery steep descent into the creek. As we were doing so we were happily singing “leron-leron sinta” with lyrics altered to reflect what were doing; fetching water. To make the long story short, midway to our trek I slipped, landed on my butt and skidded down stopping only as I hit a big boulder; this happened just as we were on the part of the song that says “pagdating sa dulo nabali ang sanga…” It was really painful; scary for I almost hit my head in the boulder; and much more, embarrassing for I have a big wet, soiled spot in my short; but we both had a good laugh and even continued singing loudly this time as he helped me clean up all the soil in my short. That has been our secret, I never asked him not to tell; but nevertheless he never did tell anyone. It has become our private joke and we really became close and inseparable after that. I will always remember how we would usually walk all the way home from school side by side with our arms in each other’s shoulders, whistling or singing whatever tune we would fancy.

I would say that, that was the only time that I really enjoyed going to school, I felt so at ease with no worries; I felt no pressure to excel academically. We really had fun; he was my very first best friend, enjoying, sharing: We shared food and even had this odd habit of putting garlic-spiced vinegar to our rice porridge. We shared secrets, crushes and dreams; we would always sneak out during noon time looking for an open radio to listen to the day’s episode of the adventure of Zimatar (a popular radio program during the 70’s); we were together when we sneaked and ogled at the legs, panties and boobs of some movie starlet swimming in the town’s only swimming pool during breaks of their movie shoot; we attended our first supposedly children’s birthday party, but picture this: children’s party with no balloons, clowns and party hats; we actually dressed like adults; pants and long-sleeved shirt with us boys in our pomade-combed hair; sipping a mildly gin-spiked juice; having truth or dare for parlor game with kiss as the constant dare; dancing the then popular el-bimbo and sweet dancing with our pretty crushes and classmates. I even had my first kiss with him; as I mentioned he had a moniker of being a lover boy as he was once caught smooching with a girl, and silly me I innocently asked him how was it like, how did he do it and all that innocent curiosity stuff and so he showed me and gave me my first kiss, just a quick peck in the lips actually, but it was so sweet. Mind you, those were done without any form of malice; but rather all part of child’s exploration and curiosity. We did so many other stuffs together.

Unfortunately, I lost him after that school year. They are relatively well off; they own one of the bigger houses in town, his parents were traders of rice and their family own tracts of land, but threat to their lives forced them to leave town; I never really got to know the details; they left as soon as the school year ended and I never heard from him since. We promised to keep in touch, but that was '70s; what resources are available to a 10-year old kid back then to really keep that promise? But I will always remember my grade school years for the fun that I had shared with him, my best friend during that time.


Next: Ulan Story No. 2: Teen’s stormy Angst

:)

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