TRUTH AND FICTION (“NOT ALL THAT GLITTERS IS GOLD”)

[Originally posted on November 8, 2011 at 2:04pm]

                              

‘Twas a very tight gridlock last Friday night. I’s inside the bus on my way home. I saw vehicles of all forms and sizes from both directions pushing and shoving each other, each one raring to gain an inch in every opportunity at the expense of another. The heat was inexplicable. I guessed the aircon was full blast yet the coldness caused by that machine was no match for the collective warm bodies of the earthlings, each one eager to reach home early thus unmindful of the bus’s standing-room-only.

I was profusely perspiring at the time, hoping against hope I might catch in time my uncle’s dinner treat at the sea foods resto 300 meters away from my domicile.

I was fuming mad.  Irritated and impatient about the bus’ minimal speed. I refrained myself from urging to pull out the driver from his seat and drive the shuttle myself. Good thing as if on cue, he suddenly floored his right foot causing the bus to pick up speed. But likewise, my anger did still accelerate.

Then I saw the one, through a rear-view mirror, sitting at the right side of the driver, to be an extremely privileged and well-endowed individual. If you could imagine someone who is a cross between Catherine Zeta-Jones and Megan Fox then you know what I mean with that gal. I would’ve mistaken her for a Caucasian had it not for her St. Paul U uniform and natural tan.

Ah, St. Paulinian beauty, at one time in my life, you’d had me. 

You had taught me a lesson I would always remember. You had taught me so well never to judge a book by its cover.

I could still vividly recall that one morning when I rode a PUJ and sat right behind the driver many years ago. At the time, at something I was so angry also. Praying I’d beat the eight o’clock since I was still in my freshman year on the job or so. Thus, everytime the driver stopped to pick up every living thing along the street, I was tempted to slap the back of his head if not choke him for a minute. 

Then all of a sudden, a corn-haired St. Paulinian coed with a stunning angelic face embarked in Molo plaza. Right at first glance, I could sense in her the true sense of femininity of a well-bred traditional Filipina. Anywhere I looked at her, the way she moved and gave a Monalisa smile, I could describe her in only two words: prim and proper. Ah, the one thing of which a Filipina of old was known for: “Mahinhin,” super!

She was sitting right in front of me so I’s compelled not to take my eyes off her and her captivating beauty. She was holding her big nursing book close to her chest. The hem of her fine checkered skirt was securely wrapped around her knees. She firmly held her straight shiny long black hair to her right as if to deny an adoring male seatmate to her left to have a taste of the blossoming heavenly scent. 

As I tendered to the driver my ten-peso bill, I was tempted again to pay for her fare. After all, regular fare at the time was one peso per head while seventy-five cents were a student privilege. But of course, I cut the urge, lest I’d be misunderstood.

I was still in the middle of my adoration of her when she tendered her one-peso coin to the driver. Quick on the draw, I picked the coin from between her fingers that I myself would give it to the driver. When she smiled as she said “thank you” I wanted to think she was not a St. Paulinian but an Ivy Leaguer. Or someone who was bred in the 1950’s thus apt to be called with the “Golden Girl” moniker.

My heart was full with excitement when the driver handed back to me a twenty-five centavo coin change for the Golden Girl. And of course I swiftly received it and tenderly tendered it back to her. 

After she took it from my hand with her right thumb and forefinger while the other three were stretched out like a peacock’s feathers, she gracefully swayed back her hair, tilted her head leftward, and put the coin in her right ear.

That instant, another cliche was recalled: “Not all that glitters is gold.” 
****

THE WORD

[July 24, 2012 at 12:18pm]

Being one of only few if not the lone guitarman in the “tambayan” along the street of North Kirayan during the 80’s, I had to choose familiar music having easy chords to strum like the melodies of the Bee Gees.

And “Words” was one of the Gibb siblings’ songs which fellow “tambays” loved to sing in disarrayed unison if not the fullest of volume. Most notably at the time was my buddy Damy who would shout its chorus with his mouth an inch away facing my nose, out of tune, unmindful of his alcohol intake’s smell and fume.

“Words don’t come easy,” as another love song says, which veracity thereof I could certify personally being a long-time word-scrambling if not word-bereft or wordless “torpe.” I remember having courted a fellow teener exasperated obviously of my Mafia-like vow of omerta everytime she was in front of me.

I had maintained the sound of silence to the extent of making my neck huffing like a flying dragon lizard’s just to control my severe cough from exploding. Good thing I did let my fingers do the talking, stop that thought, I mean by using a sign language, to ask for a hot water since the itch on my throat then I could no more contain.

Some people have tremendous command of words like the way Mark Twain and The Honorable JCOR, one of the most eloquent judges in the history of the Regional Trial Court, have, most especially during the latter's brief stint in some Branch lately.

One time, there was a just issued court decision which copy thereof was personally served by someone to that Branch’s resident prosecutor who, after reading the same in full, spewed out some expletives beautifully, cursing the magistrate for forcing her to run to the dictionary.

If there would be nobody to say a word to anybody about Somebody, I tell you, everybody would be going mad and live their lives pretty bad. People need the Word always as “[i]n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Still struggling in spirit and under the bondage of sin? Let me paraphrase Joyce Kilmer for you here on FB, my friend:

Posts are made by fools like me, but only God can make you free…

OLDIES BUT GOODIES

(July 17, 2014 at 1:02pm)

After failing thrice in 1997 to watch its version in VHS due to extreme prejudice since I thought it was just an old and obsolete Hollywood drama, I finally had a chance last Saturday morning to see it for myself why highly regarded as one of the best films of all time is the 1943 movie, “Casablanca.”

Now, wanna ask me what can I say, Man? Nothing but four words: I love Ingrid Bergman.

Having glimpse of the past by way of a classic film like that, made during the time when movies were movies and stars were a star, one could only wish he were born in that period to personally witness how lovely indeed those mesmerizing beauties are.

After watching it, I couldn’t blame anymore the majority of film critics and artists who until now still near-worship Ms. Ingrid. By just peeking at her wonderful face you could also hate ugliness like does the Black Widow, who else but someone Imeldific.

However, beholders of creation are not created equal in quality and size as beauty lies not only in the same set of eyes. What’s place miserable and hellish for a plunderer too rich and too wise could be palace to the poor, to say it otherwise.

Some good ole things seem to be a lot better than the best one anyone could offer at present time. They grow sweeter and finer as time goes by, like in a gold-barrel, secretly fermented rare kind of wine.

Like my cellphone that for almost a decade would stick with me through thick and thin although the spare parts are no longer available in the market or in my friend, a Muslim. I had it lost nine times already, unintentionally or deliberately, yet it kept on coming back to me so very often, for the reason that no one’s interested to take it with him.

Like the Scriptures which is the oldest book in the world, far older than anything a man had written since he mentioned his very first word. It outlives its writers but the theme, principle and wisdom thereof—as current as the issues of today—are in one Book where they did hoard.

It’s the same Scriptures that thousands of years ago were admonished by Joshua to be meditated upon day and night by all of the Israelites (Joshua 1:8). It’s the same Scriptures that were referred likewise by no less than the Christ to be searched and studied by all the Jews and non-Jews alike:

“Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me,” as in John 5:39 Jesus simply put. Like what Paul said, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

Doing so only makes a man’s faith firm and the believer wise. As to say it like Rick Blaine, and we’ll always have paradise.

CHANGES IN MY LIFE

(July 12, 2012 at 9:11am)

Once more, it can now be told, I am inevitably getting old.

Exhibit A, my wobbly knee.

I had another big scare in my life one afternoon when the Doctors-bound Leganes jeepney I was riding in had to cross the UP Flyover-Infante junction. I was at the front seat hoping the jeepney would be stopped upon approaching the highway crossing by the assigned traffic aide, but he made a sign instead for my jeepney to proceed, pumping his fist up and down, which meant to cross at full speed ahead.

A few years back, I could jump out with no sweat from a running vehicle at minimum speed, which act a man in the street called “haybol,” thus right in that instant, I remembered the stunt, moved out my upper-half body from the jeepney as I studied how to jump through memory recall.

And when my mind yelled “Action,” I quickly jumped out of it for once as on the running pavement I took a glance. I had a sheepish smile of victory after I heard my own shoes sounded “taka-tak-tak-tak” on the asphalt as if I just did a perfect tap dance.

I may have made it but there was a price to pay. My feet went numb thereafter and it hurt my knee.

Exhibit B, my eyes which are now gloomy.

I honestly believed then I’d have my first reading glasses when I’m sixty, but like other mortals I’ve had it just barely past forty. It’s precisely so hard once your eyes depend on something else just to regain twenty-twenty. It’s truly a big deal if you’d mistaken something because your eyes would fail. It could cost you the truth, or worse, even your life itself as well.

Just like a boy who was initially intrigued by a poster inside an optical clinic he visited which poster as he read said, “God is nowhere.” He told the optometrist about it as he wondered if the latter was an atheist, and the man adjusted the boy’s goggles until he correctly read the words as they should be: “God is Now Here.”

Like a blurred vision of that boy and his own sunglasses, just a little readjustment of heart and sight in this life is what we only need.

A NURSING STORY

[Tinkered edition from June 11, 2012 at 7:59am]

When I was younger, so much younger than today, okay, I mean when I was sixteen exactly, I dreamed to have a nurse for a wifey. It started when a nurse-wife of a friend requested my Nanay to let her two college junior OJT friends who were nurses-in-the-making for a brief board and lodging in our modest residence then.

As a typical full-blooded Ilonggo, my folks did welcome them wholeheartedly. I think I had already narrated here my then-secret crush story regarding “Aubrey.”

I always have a firm belief since then that the purest among them all is a nursing profession. From the start, my only basis for it is their spotless, Tide/Ariel washed and shining white uniform.

And so far, only once did I remember that somebody tried to successfully stain such belief unwittingly, and that was only when a Lady Gaga look-alike nurse wore conspicuous flaming red undergarments for all the world to see.

Yet still, that single faux pas of one could not completely shatter my conviction for the whole white ladies’ gang. My full respect for their heavenly suit and pursuit avocation will always remain even after a thin swan or a fat lady sang.

It’s simply because most of the people closer to my heart were or still are in that profession which has one if not the most expensive college studies and preparation in the country. The most abused lot as, if not compelled to be called for call centers where they rest only when nature calls, they’re the milking cows of hospitals hiring them with minimal wages and salary.

A nurse is the most caring and daring pro because her calling demands her to be so. I should know, I was hospitalized in 2000 due to what they call then “na-impatso.”

But the most embarrassing moment I had as a patient was when I was admitted a coupla years later due to orchitis, an ailment involving half of two worlds of men near their pride in patrimony. During the initial ocular inspection by an intern physician, an attending lady nurse made a mistake in furthering her scrutiny which caused the ‘patriot missile’ to dutifully rise like in a flag ceremony.

Had it not for some ice cubes to the rescue, a great scandal would have erupted in Don Benito. All because of a nurse and her over-eagerness to help and to perform the sworn task she had led. I’m recalling it as I sing a song of the Bee Gees: “And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from the things that I’d said…”

BACK TO BASIC(?)

(June 11, 2012 at 11:31am)

I am totally supportive of the Dep-Ed’s latest decision to shift medium of instruction in public schools from English to native tongue in all localities. That way, the basics could be understood immediately that someday a phone conversation between a concerned citizen and the PNP won’t be like, “Hello, Police! Police this is?” to which the PNP curtly replies, “Yes, please, police this is!”

For how can a pupil give a correct answer to a question when in the first place he could not understand instructions? Instructions are always officially a part of an examination and we all know that the mother of all stupidity is assumption. That’s why there are many kids who flunk the exams, as they just assume what the question meant and they couldn’t understand.

I am a product of a vernacular instruction as when I was in Grade One Section “Sara,” although we had a textbook in Hiligaynon, we were taught in “pure cow’s milk” Kinaray-a. And I could still recite some unforgettable dialogues from that book’s main characters Lino and Nita, such as, “Ay, pakâ, pakâ, galî, há! há! há! há!”

I could also recall such omnipresent proverb “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan” dictated by the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos to be posted everywhere in every school particularly in a “paseo.” The country’s sole ailment then was lack of discipline among men, “sosyalismo” and “komunismo,” but I was enlightened after the Pinoys told Marcos pointblank that the real problems actually were “Misis Mo” and “Ikaw mismo.”

I’m happy that we are treading on the straight path of decency and order again. Judging from those indictment left and right of past abusers of power they now know there’s such a thing as crime and punishment.

The public in general would gradually realize that Abe Lincoln was absolutely right in describing democracy as a whole. That real power belongs to the people as it is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people…”

LOVE ACTUALLY, AGAIN

(June 11, 2013 at 4:24pm)

Whether or not you are authentic romantic, love is always an endless topic. A topic of which man has two choices: love it or hate it. The way a lover’s explanation varies.

In this lovely world love is truly more complex than anything. The reason why The Four Aces sang it in closed eyes that it’s a many-splendored thing. Take it from me, it’s the most enduring. One may forget it for a while but it’ll always keep on returning.

Like the fleeting memories of love featuring old friends in school in the photo below, not above. I rolled down in laughter yesterday upon seeing it for the first time when from cyberspace I had it grabbed.

I’m still amused with our faces and poses there because while I think majority in us were still asking then, “What is love.”  Little did I know then that one of our classmates present there had a child along she tagged, a fruit of her labor, wonderfully made in love.

One of my most feared in life is when the time comes the past would catch up on me if not it did already. Truly, we can never undo things we did then thoughtlessly unlike what we normally do with mistakes with our e-gadgets today.

It’s pretty scary even to imagine when someday, heaven permits, in your high school seventieth anniversary, you found yourself one of only two present but you’re so aghast you could not found her face anywhere in memory.

And you would play along for a while; engage her in a light talk, hoping her name would spark eventually. However, no matter how hard you tried, nothing in your brain about her in there making you so mad inside.

Finally, exasperated as you face the truth, and since you both knew you’re octogenarians you admit to her your memory loss. The scariest part there is, when you ask her name in your most gentlemanly gesture, she would tell you straight from the heart, her soul’s so sure, that she was once your girlfriend and you never had any closure.

Ahh, the childhood’s foolishness, the sins of the young and promiscuity of the youth. Just when you think you had them all wrapped up, they haunt you back, you're "lucky" if you're just shot in the foot.

It’s because you thought what you have had spread abroad in the olden times through good or bad were already the so called true love, and one rising above. Forgetting that despite those things you were and are still alive because of Someone Who is higher than the highest, greater than the great, called the Champion of Love.